Healthy living key: whole-grain dinner dishes

One simple step can benefit your health and may even improve your longevity—eat whole grains. Here are some tasty and convenient ways to do it.

Your healthy eating goal: One to two servings of whole grains per day.

• These grains are cooked, then dried. Yes, they lose some texture along the way, but they retain most or even all of brown rice's fibre and nutrients.
• They're stellar quality and they cook in five to 20 minutes, making this convenience food great as a once-in-awhile fallback.
• You can also cook up quick brown rice to use in place of the common tub of white that comes with Chinese takeout.

• It works as well—or better—in chicken-and-rice dishes, stuffed cabbage, soups and casseroles.
• You'll love pudding made with brown rice, too, for its nutty flavour and chunky yet tender texture.

• Other whole grains you may find in your grocery store or health food shop include amaranth, barley, kasha (buckwheat groats), couscous, millet, quinoa, wheat berries and wild rice. Each has a unique flavour and texture.
• Try a new one each week. Give it the sniff test before purchasing to be sure the oils in the germ don't have a stale, rancid odour. Refrigerate or freeze grains to retain freshness.

• We love pearled barley for its creamy texture, its six grams of fibre per 250 grams (1 cup)—including cholesterol-lowering soluble fibre—and its fast cooking time: just 30 minutes. It's a delicious side dish replacement for rice and gives soups and stews a soft, thick texture.
• Bulgur is just whole wheat that's been steamed, dried and cracked. Think of it as a whole-grain convenience food; it cooks in 20 minutes. Traditionally used for Middle Eastern tabbouleh (a salad with bulgur, tomatoes, cucumber and parsley), it also makes a delicious side dish.
• Couscous is really a tiny-grained pasta made from wheat flour. The catch: some is refined, some is whole wheat. Your assignment: look for whole-wheat couscous in the supermarket or natural foods store. It's the fastest-cooking whole-grain product of them all: just add boiling water and cover, and in five minutes, it's ready to serve. Switching to whole-wheat couscous means getting seven grams of fibre per serving, compared to just two grams in regular couscous.

• Add 125 grams (1/2 cup) of cooked bulgur, wheat berries, brown or wild rice or barley (not pearled) to stuffings, soups, stews, salads or casseroles.
• Add a cooked whole grain or whole-grain bread crumbs to ground meat or poultry for extra body. Make risottos, pilafs, and other rice-type dishes using grains such as barley, brown basmati rice, bulgur, millet, quinoa, kasha or sorghum.

Use your air popper for a high-fibre, low-fat snack. Each 8 grams (1 cup) of air-popped popcorn has 1.2 grams of fibre (and just 31 calories)—and who can eat just one cup?

• Yes, classic brown rice does require 45 minutes of cooking time, so you have to plan ahead a little. Make the cooking process easier by investing in a rice cooker (toss in rice and water and turn it on—no need to worry about a burned pot!).
• Or you can cook a big batch of brown rice on the weekend and freeze meal-size portions in zipper-seal freezer bags. Reheat in the microwave on weeknights.