Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

Wikipedia

The bran is the tough outside layer; the germ is the part that actually sprouts; the endosperm is the "food" for the sprouting part. These parts are pretty obvious in something like corn. The endosperm is the part that's easy to digest - what we eat to get SF. The bran and germ are tougher and the germ contains oil.

Apparently all grains have these three basic parts and as long as all three are present the grain is considered whole. See web page for a list of some grains that can come "whole".

"Multi-grain" should mean that there is more than one grain in whatever product you're looking at. I would imagine that usually it would be wheat and something else. A product can be multi-grain and not be "whole" if some or all of the grains in it were refined (only endosperm). For example, Arnold's 12-grain bread contains refined wheat flour.

The fact that you can tolerate some multi-grain products and not others probably has to do with which grains are in the product and how refined they are. For example, many IBSers:
- can handle refined wheat flour (which doesn't have the bran or germ)
- but can't handle whole wheat (which includes the bran and germ along with the endosperm)
- but can tolerate oatmeal (which includes the bran and germ along with the endosperm).

Note that a label like "12-grain" doesn't necessarily mean there are 12 actual *grains* in there. For example, this web page gives a list of possibilities for inclusion in a 12-grain flour or bread that includes sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and soy, none of which are true grains.

HTH.

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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]

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