Marketing from the big cereal companies would have you believe that cereal grains are highly nutritious. They state that if you don't eat them your diet will be incomplete, you will miss out on all sorts of vitamins, minerals, and fibre.
The marketing is misleading, it is simply not true. Grains are not nutrient dense at all, compare grains to vegetables and fruit and they are nutrient poor.
If you were to follow the marketing advice ( eat whole grains and low- fat foods) you would be having around 6 servings of grains a day. If we compare this to a diet where these grain servings are replaced by vegetables and fruit you would find the fiollowing nutritional analysis. The diet with the grains provides more than three times the sugar and sodium then would the diet with the vegetables and fruit. In fact the diet that features the vegetables and fruit in place of the grains provides more fibre, potassium and magnesium, way more iron, zinc, and vitamins A, B, C, D, E and K.
The whole grain advocates will insist you need grains for fibre, the truth is there is more fibre in vegetables and fruit. Grains lower your micronutrient content in your diet whilst giving you surplus sugar, and we know what sugar does, it makes you fat and sick.
When it all comes down to it Grains have many negative affects on us, they are not the healhty foods they are made out to be, rich companies pay for research in their favour. The truth is there is not a single health promoting substance in grains that you can't also get from fruit and vegetables.
Cut your grains and replace with vegetables. Add a good protein to your meal nad you have all the benefits of fodd for good health. Grains are not nutrient dense.