By IANS,
Washington : School children eat more whole grains when it is gradually added to their tiffin boxes, according to a study.
Whole grain breads are strongly recommended as part of a healthy diet, but children and pre-teens won’t always eat them.
The research is important because it shows that a gradual approach to improving children’s overall diets can be successful both for parents and school food-service workers, said Len Marquart, study’s co-author and an associate professor at the Minnesota university.
Minnesota researchers monitored how much bread students threw away, and whether that amount increased as the percentage of whole-grain flour in the bread and rolls was gradually increased.
The study included meals fed to kindergarteners through sixth-graders at two Hopkins, Minnesota, elementary schools over the course of a school year, said a Minnesota release.
Red and white whole-grain flour was added incrementally to products, but students showed no strong preference for either type of flour. Students didn’t throw away more bread products until the percentage of whole-grain flour in the bread and rolls reached about 70 percent.