This is the kind of war where everyone wins. Last year Papa John’s rolled out a 100% whole wheat pizza crust, with 40g of whole grain per serving. Now Pizza Hut has launched its Natural Pizza, with a multigrain crust incorporating 8g of whole grain in every serving.

See the Stamp down in the lower right corner of this advertising circular that Pizza Hut sent around nationwide this past weekend? That’s one of the serioiusly cool facts about these two pizzas: they both use the Whole Grain Stamp, to assure consumers that their pizzas REALLY contain significant amounts of whole grain. Just think. At a time when the average American eats less than one serving of whole grain daily, both of these pizzas could really up the average.

Which one is better? We don’t play favorites, because taste is such an individual and subjective thing. We suggest you try both of them and make your own decision. We think you’ll discover the good news that it’s no longer necessary to choose between “good for you” and “good tasting” at some leading-edge chain restaurants.

During 2009 we’ll be nudging other chain restaurants to offer at least one whole grain choice at all times. When you eat out, check our restaurant list to see where you can find whole grains – and make a comment here if you know of other places that should be added to our list. (Cindy)

Comments

Anonymous
January 26, 2009
I think we need to be careful that consumers aren't led to believe that just because a product contains whole grains or a whole grain endorsement that it automatically becomes healthy. For example, the Pizza Hut pizza displayed above may be very high in energy, saturated/trans fats and sodium and as such not a healthy choice at all. Having the addition of whole grains to the product may be a good thing but if consumers equate this with the product being healthy, without considering the other ingredients in the product, the negative consequence could be that consumers increase their consumption of foods that yes, contain whole grains but might also be extremely high in energy, fat, sugar, sodium etc and detrimental to their health. The same issues have surfaced with the GI symbol (Australia) and to resolve this the products that display the symbol have to meet other nutrition criteria, to safeguard against food companies using the symbol to promote foods that are low GI but otherwise unhealthy choices due to their fat, sugar (etc) content. I believe we need to take this into consideration with the whole grain story too.

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