Read the Label

Nutritional Information

The nutritional value of the grain is shown on the label or package. It lists the serving size, the number of calories per serving, fat and cholesterol content, protein, carbohydrates, and the vitamins and minerals.

Ingredients

The ingredients list shows any ingredients that may have been added to the packaged grain or were used to produce the grain product.

Use By Date

The packaged grain or grain product should have an expiration date, which is the last date that the product can remain on the shelves of the store. The expiration date is usually designated as "best by…," "best if used by…," or "sell by…". Products are generally pulled from food store shelves prior to the "use by" or "sell by" date.

Cooking Instructions

If a product is not fully cooked or ready-to-eat, the label may provide information for proper cooking.

Fortified or Enriched

When a grain or grain product is labeled "fortified" or "enriched", it means that some of the nutrients that were originally in the grain and were lost during processing are added in at the end of the processing. This may be true with pearled or polished grains (grains that have had the hull, bran, and germ removed), such as white rice, which is sprayed with nutrients at the end of processing or with grain products, such as refined flour, that may be enriched with some of the lost nutrients.

Whole Grain

The label should indicate if the grain or grain product is whole grain. The words "whole grain," should be printed on the label or should be in the ingredients list, indicating that the product contains the all of the bran, endosperm, and germ.

A Note about Wild Rice

Within Minnesota, the label on packaged wild rice must state whether the rice is lake rice or cultivated rice. Unfortunately there are no national standards for the labeling of wild rice so in some areas of the United States it is often difficult to know if wild rice is really wild or if it is cultivated. Another popular marketing practice is to blend wild rice with other types of long-grain rice, which often confuses people as to what they are actually getting. Manually harvested lake rice is expensive, so if the price of a particular package is too good to be true, it most likely is not the real thing.