We spent several days last week attending meetings in Portland, Oregon. As part of the meetings, we were able to tour Tidewater Barge and the Port of Portland. A lot of wheat moves in and out of both of those places which is an amazing thing to see.

Wheat that originates in Idaho, for example, is hauled via barge down the Snake River to the Columbia River and across the Pacific to destinations all across Asia. What used to take weeks to move down river can now be done in days. It is a well-oiled system. Had I not been on this tour, I would not have realized what all is involved in getting our food to the table. We toured one of the tugs that helps push the barges into port. With 4500 horsepower, these tugs can push up to five of the massive barges loaded with goods at one time. The crew is extremely knowledgeable and experienced in all kinds of weather and river traffic conditions. They work on the tugs six hours on six hours off, morning or night. The tugs themselves are always kept in topnotch working order.

So much of our domestically grown wheat is exported to so many different countries. It is of the highest quality grown, is nutritious and can be made into so many different end products. The pasta that you get in Italy is mostly grown in North Dakota. Steamed dumplings and ramen noodles are made from various wheats grown in states throughout our nation.

It is mind boggling how much is truly involved in getting wheat from farm-to-fork. We can be proud of our farming community here in the U.S. We truly do help feed the world. Do you find it fascinating of what all is involved to get our food to the table?

A recent news story on Good Morning America about dieting and weight loss suggested that when eating out, ask for your take-home box first. That way once your entrée arrives, put half your oversized restaurant portion into the box before you even begin eating! This was one of many tips suggested from an advisor at a teen weight camp who oversees overweight and obese teens who are on a mission to get healthy.

Other suggestions that the teens follow is wearing a pedometer each and every day to monitor activity (10,000 steps per day is the goal), start each morning with an aerobic activity to jumpstart your metabolism, and include healthy meal options and healthy snacks throughout the day. The good news is that carbs are part of this healthy regimen!

One teen girl being interviewed, who had arrived at the camp at over 460 pounds, had already lost over 200 pounds and wanted to lose another 110. She already learned that carbs are part of a healthy diet because they have only 4 calories per gram whereas fats have 9 calories per gram. Good for her! She includes lean protein and carbohydrates as part of her daily diet.

In addition to the healthy eating options and daily walks, grabbing the box first is such a great idea. It is something that I had never thought of until now. I will do this the next time I eat out! What about you?

Submitted by: Lynn Holly, Communications Director, Wheat Foods Council

School is drawing to a close, summer vacation is just around the corner, and we all know active kiddos like to eat. Now’s a great time to teach your kids something without them even knowing it. Good nutrition that’s economical as well as kid-friendly can all be found, in of all places, the humble sandwich. (And you thought this was going to be difficult and time-consuming.)

As a Mom of four now-chronological adults, I’ve found that experience is often the best teacher and I am proud to say all my children (three boys and one girl) are capable of cooking for themselves, friends and family. I never have to worry that they aren’t eating right—they learned to make their favorite foods from a variety of food choices we had on hand. Often these were recipes of their own design. They learned how to make meals for themselves and others and yes, they did learn to clean up after meal preparation—although that lesson was more difficult to teach.

We all know the sandwich as the original portable food, and while the hot sandwich is tasty and tempting, there are so many choices to make great sandwiches that don’t need cooking—making it a great breakfast, lunch or dinner item for children to express their creative culinary talents. All you need to do is provide the opportunity in the form of readily available great sandwich ingredients.

A recent study conducted by Texas A&M University found that the average American will eat approximately 200 sandwiches per year. With so many sandwiches in our diet, it’s important to make sure they’re healthy, interesting and nutritious. There are also ways to make sandwiches an economical food choice.

You can give any sandwich a healthy makeover following suggestions found on the HealthCastle website. Using whole grain breads whether sliced, buns, pitas, wraps or bagels provide nutrients such as B vitamins and vitamin E, fiber, iron and magnesium. 

Many children enjoy white whole wheat bread, which tastes and feels like the white bread they’re used to but supplies the benefits of whole wheat. Complex carbohydrates found in whole wheat provides energy all children and adults need. The USDA recommends 6 or more ounce equivalents (servings) of grains daily with at least 3 of those being whole grains.

Lowering the fat content by replacing high-fat condiments with mustard, ketchup, chili sauce, hummus, guacamole or low-fat salad dressing provides flavor and variety. Rather than using processed meats that are high in fat and sodium, provide options with tuna, eggs, leftover meats from dinner including grilled chicken, ham or roast beef. It’s a great way to use up leftovers and stretches your food budget. Add low-fat cheeses as a great source of calcium.

Remember loading up vegetables on a sandwich keeps it interesting and adds to the nutrient value. Pickles, baby spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms, bean sprouts, shredded carrots, peppers and onions are great choices.

By presenting a variety of healthy food options giving your child the opportunity to create their best sandwich creations, you teach them about nutrition, independence and healthy living. The best part is, you share food preparation with your children, save money and who knows—your children just might start making your sandwich for lunch.

You can find a morning sandwich Peanut Butter Banana Roll-Ups and a sandwich for small hands Burrito Bunny Bites together with other great recipes to share with your children in the Wheat Foods Council’s 35th anniversary cookbook entitled Food for Thought from Parents to Children. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each cookbook goes to Spoons Across America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to educating families about the benefits of healthy eating.

Enjoy your summer sandwiches!

Guest blog submitted by:

Zoe Olson, Public Information Officer, Nebraska Wheat Board, Nebraska Wheat Growers Association

In a world crawling with distrust and unreliability, a new survey shows that consumers have a high level of trust in United States farmers.

A consumer survey, which took place in February, surveyed a random sample of 1,000 registered voters with characteristics representative of the U.S. population to determine their approval of agricultural producers.

The results overwhelmingly showed that consumers trust farmers to produce a safe, healthy and abundant supply of food.

Some of the key findings from the study commissioned by the United Soybean Board include:

• Individuals who are somewhat or very favorable toward U.S. poultry and livestock producers rose from 69 percent in 2008 to 78 percent in 2009.
• Top positive farmer attributes among consumers are that farm families know about protecting air and water quality and that most farmers take good care of their animals.
• Nearly 90 percent of consumers do not see farmers as a major reason for increases in food prices.
• Most consumers agree that it’s important to subsidize farmers to ensure a safe food supply.
• After hearing that anti-confinement legislation could force Americans to get their milk, eggs and meat from foreign producers, 78 percent of consumers are against the legislation.
• Consumers see energy security as the most important benefit of biobased products.

The results of this survey are similar to one conducted in July 2008. This survey, conducted by The Center for Food Integrity, revealed that not only do consumers trust agricultural producers when it comes to food safety, but they hold them responsible for it.

These results have been gladly received by many producers, whose livelihood depends on their ability to produce food for not only this nation, but the world. This is especially true for wheat producers who export about half of all the wheat that is grown in the United States to foreign countries.

What is your level of trust for agricultural producers?

Guest blog submitted by:

Steelee Hogue, Communications Director, Texas Wheat Producers Board

Tonight “The View’s” Elisabeth Hasselbeck will appear on “Larry King Live” to promote her new book, “GFree Diet: a gluten-free survival guide.” While gluten-free diets may be appropriate for those like Hasselbeck with Celiac disease, we felt compelled to bring this to our reader’s attention and speak to the non-gluten intolerant portion of the population.

Individuals that have Celiac disease are going to feel better and be energized when they eliminate gluten; however, those of us who do not need to eliminate gluten should not.  Eliminating gluten from the diet has absolutely no connection with weight gain, loss or maintenance or for that matter simply feeling good. To suggest otherwise is simply not true. Gluten is simply a protein found in the wheat, barley and rye grains. Other grains or substitutes for these foods would have not calorie advantage to gluten. All proteins and carbohydrates contain the same amount of calories and it is the calories in the food that contributes to weight loss or gain.

Gluten-free diets have been around for many years – recommended to individuals who, because of medical reasons, cannot properly digest a protein called gluten. These individuals have reluctantly had to give up foods that contain or are made from wheat, rye and barley. Experts approximate this to be about 1 percent of the population. That said, the market for gluten-free products is exploding. A recent survey reported by the American Dietetic Association, estimated that 15 to 20 percent of consumers want gluten-free products.

This survey indicates to us that there is certainly misinformation being spread about gluten-free products. The major concern voiced by health care professionals is that following this type of diet without a clear diagnosis can mask signs that would allow an expert to identify related problems and adequately treat them. Before you commit to a diet that has a high price tag, both for your wallet and your health, consider what you might be losing out on.

• Gluten is the protein that provides the structure to yeast bread products. It is the reason why wheat is so universal in making bread. Even in cultures that do not consume wheat as their primary grain use wheat in their bread making.
• Because gluten is so pervasive in the food supply, gluten avoiders can end up short on a number of vitamins.
• In addition, a poorly planned gluten-free diet can contain a lot of calories and lead to weight gain.

Clearly the popularity of this “fad” diet has led to a lot more gluten-free foods on the market – a real gift for the truly intolerant as well as those with Celiac disease, which is a good thing.

Now for a voice of reason – if you suspect intolerance to gluten, it is important to see a physician who can find out if your suspicions are valid. If there is some other reason for your symptoms it is important to find out what that is. Then you can find out whether you truly need to avoid gluten containing foods or can continue to enjoy them!

Let us know what your experiences have been with gluten-free foods or if you have people in your life that think they might be intolerant and how they handled it.

If you have discovered the Wheat Foods Council website and this blog and have thoroughly investigated the recipes and resources here, you may be interested in other internet sites having to do with wheat foods, baking, and other food-related topics. As a self-proclaimed “foodie,” I find a great deal of inspiration on the internet, and sometimes endless variations on one recipe.

Starting right out with bread – have you heard of the “no-knead” bread recipe? Originally posted by the New York Times in November, 2006, this recipe has traveled the world via the internet, been discussed on numerous food blogs, and reviewed and modified by countless food bloggers. A long list of variations can now be found, from a whole wheat shaped bread to pizza dough.

Some websites focusing mainly on bread that I have recently discovered are The Knead for Bread, Cookingbread.com, and The Fresh Loaf.  

I personally use two main web sites, Slashfood and Serious Eats, to stay abreast of news in the food world, new cookbooks, and helpful kitchen tools. These websites, in turn, sometimes lead me to discover food bloggers, such as Pioneer Woman, a self-described “thirty-something ranch wife” who grew up in the city and now lives on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. The Pioneer Woman documents each recipe with detailed photos of each step. Her cinnamon rolls look especially delectable.

Some food websites are quite specialized, such as 52 Cupcakes, which features cupcake recipes and decorating ideas. Cupcake Blog also has innovative cupcake recipes. If you are interested in one particular kind of food, there is probably a website for you!

I often find wonderful recipes on blogs that not entirely focused on food. Writer Suzanne McMinn journals on-line at “Chickens in the Road” about her career as a romance writer, her move to the country and building a farmhouse, and her wonderful “Grandmother Bread.” She calls it “Grandmother Bread” because her Grandmother taught her how to make it. Now she has passed the tradition of bread baking on to her own daughter.

Many times you can find new versions of a recipe simply by typing the name into your favorite search engine, but there are also recipe sites that are useful in your search. I like Cooks.com and Allrecipes.com.

With the current economic downturn, there is much interest in living frugally, and part of that is cooking more at home. There is also great interest in the cooking of the Depression, when people had to make do with very little. A 93-year old grandmother named Clara has become a bit of an internet celebrity on YouTube with her series of videos, Depression Cooking. With the help of her grandson, who shoots and edits the videos, she has now come out with a series of DVDs and a cookbook is on the way.  Clara bakes bread on episode 4.5, the second segment of “Peppers and Eggs.” There are also many other interesting sites that come up when you search for “Depression Recipes.”

The Wheat Foods Council is not affiliated with these sites and is not responsible for their content. They are sites that I have found personally useful in my cooking adventures. You may discover something that you do not agree with or do not like on the sites of that are listed above. If you don’t like one, try the next one!

If you have not yet explored the internet in search of your food interests, I encourage you to do so!  And of course, tell us what you have found and what you particularly like.  We are always looking for new sources.

Guest blog submitted by:
Glenda Mostek, Communications and Marketing Director, Colorado Wheat Commission

When I entered the auditorium at the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame on April 2, I didn’t know what to expect. On the stage, a young man was riffing on his guitar; meanwhile, several young people were dressed in an eclectic blend of costumes, symbolic of rural America in the 19th century.

These young people were 3rd and 4th graders from schools in Leavenworth and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. And they were at the Center that evening to give a program on what they had learned about wheat, after six months of study in their school’s Gifted Study program.

These children had been granted a unique opportunity by the Center to develop an interactive exhibit in the Center’s museum based on an agricultural topic. About 30 kids from three schools did a great job of incorporating wheat into a curriculum that covered math, science, geography, history, music and crafts. The children developed songs about wheat; craft projects that will engage other attendees of the museum; and science projects about plant development and the art of making bread.

It was an outstanding program, and my hat is off to the teachers at these schools, for accepting the challenge of developing six months of wheat-based curriculum.

This effort was unique, according to Lee Sigley, education coordinator for the Center. Students and teachers worked together to learn about a specific topic, and the Center will provide room for the exhibit plus an auditorium in which the students can present a program for their parents.

Wheat was a natural choice, because many of the students attending these schools are from military families and will spend a short time in Kansas. Studying wheat was a great way to learn about the quintessential Kansas crop, but also, about the state as a whole.

By all accounts, it was a complete success: the students’ performance was awesome and the interactive exhibit will be on display until June. The Center will host many elementary school groups in coming months and as a result, hundreds of kids will learn about wheat production, wheat foods and the history of wheat production in the United States.

Kansas Wheat – the cooperative agreement between the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers and the Kansas Commission – was proud to be a sponsor of the “World of Wheat” program at the Center. We applaud the Center’s administration for getting young people involved in learning about wheat production, wheat nutrition and the wholesome goodness of wheat foods.

For more information on the Center, log onto www.AgHallofFame.com. Also, check out the Kansas Wheat Web site, www.kswheat.com, for a short video about the “World of Wheat” program. Click on “Video of the Month.”

Bill Spiegel, Communications Specialist
Kansas Wheat

I recently participated in an international food labeling webcast that explored what consumers “get” from reading a food label. The bottom line is that what we provide and what consumers want and even understand is not the same.

• What is a milligram (mg) of sodium and more importantly how much does a body need?
• And what about calories? Is it really clear that the calories indicated on the Nutrition Facts panel pertain to one serving of the contained product?
• Or more importantly do people really read the back of the label?

What I learned is that the information we provide is not very helpful and often buried in the rules imbedded in the legislation designed to inform consumers. I also learned that consumers all over the world prefer simple information on the front of the label, not the back.  Here are the findings:

• The primary things that consumers use on the nutrition label are calories and fat
• Issues most often named are clarity and visibility
• They want larger type for the information so they can read it more easily
• Serving size needs to be more prominent on the label

The FDA is the agency tasked with any nutrition labeling changes. These changes are supposed to follow the Dietary Guidelines and MyPyramid release. We haven’t seen a major overhaul of the food label since the introduction of the Nutrition Facts Panel in the early 1990’s. One of the biggest sources of confusion is how to identify whole grains. We can’t even agree on a definition of what that is, let alone how best to inform consumers.

What frustrates you about food labels?

The USDA recently reported that wheat farmers are planting less acres of wheat for the 2009 season than was anticipated. This is 7% less than the amount planted in 2008. All categories of wheat are affected reporting anywhere from a 6 to 10% decrease depending on the type of wheat. By comparison, corn acreage is down only 1% and soybeans are up by about the same amount. For the full report click here.

This begs the question WHY? While the response to that question is multifaceted and rather complicated, part of it lies in the fact that biotechnology has yet to reach wheat production. Wheat, it happens, is the world’s most widely consumed food grain, and has not yet had the benefit of biotechnology. That has contributed to a rapid decline in acres devoted to wheat in the U.S. It also has led to the minute gains in average yield, compared to those realized by corn and soybeans.

In a recent survey of wheat farmers there was overwhelming support of commercializing biotechnology in wheat. National nutrition organizations support biotechnology, and consumer research reports that consumers are unconcerned about the issue. In fact, much of the food we already eat has been subject to biotechnology advances. Today 70% of all processed foods in the U.S. have at least one ingredient from genetically engineered corn, cotton, canola or soybean and there has not been a single case of human illness associated with these crops.

So why the delay in wheat? Private technology providers need to be assured of ground-level support for their efforts before undertaking the decade-long, multimillion-dollar path toward commercialization of a trait. Up until recently, markets to which we sell some of our wheat have resisted the commercialization of this crop so the research dollars have not been forthcoming from technology providers or universities. It is inevitable that biotechnology will play an increasingly important role in agriculture. The question is not whether to use it but how. Agriculture needs all the appropriate tools available if we are to feed the growing world population. Let’s direct our attention where it matters – the need to support the use of farming methods that are good for both the consumer and the environment.

What are your thoughts regarding biotechnology and the food supply? Does the number of wheat acres planted matter to you? Should it?

As I was getting ready for work Friday morning, I was listening to Good Morning America.  They did a segment on the new book “Nudge”, co-authored by Cass R. Sunstein and Richard Thaler. The book was written in hopes of making small, little behavior changes to help benefit those who have a hard time losing weight.  The idea behind the book, according to Richard Thaler, is a nudge which he describes as any small feature of the environment that captures our attention and changes our behavior - tiny and painless cues that can influence people to make better choices.

GMA conducted their own test by making three tiny changes to a group of fifty people who are, at their place of employment, served a breakfast buffet every morning. The employees did not know that GMA was involved nor did they have any knowledge that they were being watched. On average, the workers were big doughnut eaters and consumed very little fruit or healthier breakfast items. The first test was to elevate the fruit and granola to the front and to set the Danishes and doughnuts off to one side. By doing this, the fruit and granola were made more visible than the doughnuts. With this small change, the fruit was totally gone within 30 minutes and the consumption of the granola had doubled.

On the second day, they placed signs on the table stating that bagels were a part of an average American’s breakfast, while Danishes and doughnuts were not. The employees were nudged to consume more bagels and the doughnut consumption dropped by one-third.

The final test was to have mirrors placed in the cafeteria. By doing this, the employees had a visual effect of what they chose to eat. It also provided that “being watched” feeling. On this test, GMA ended up with more leftover doughnuts than previously experienced with the other two tests.

The GMA test does support the premise that by providing little ‘nudges’, we can make changes to our behavior. Maybe by getting out of bed every morning and putting on our tennis shoes first thing, we can nudge ourselves into exercise. I do think though that I might add a mirror or two to my kitchen and place my fruit where I see it first. I really might think twice about what I am putting into my mouth if I am actually seeing it.

What types of “nudges” will you make with your eating behaviors?

Contributed by: Vikki Berry, Office Manager, Wheat Foods Council