Remember that scene in Steve Martin’s film “The Jerk” when he gets so excited by the arrival of the new phone book? We felt the same way today at the WGC when we learned that the Australians had released their first new dietary guidelines in 10 years — with a strong recommendation for eating more whole grains.

In fact, Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council says that Australian adults need to increase whole grain consumption by 160% and decrease refined grain consumption by 30% in order to meet recommended intakes. Kids “Down Under” are apparently doing better than the adults; they only need 20-60% more whole grain (depending on age group) and 10-30% less refined grain.

(If you’re reading this in the U.S., don’t get all smug. Americans are much farther behind the eight-ball than Australians. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee here said that Americans consume only 15% of the recommended amount of whole grains. That means we need a whopping 667T increase to reach healthy consumption targets. Plus we need to cut refined grain intake by 50% at the same time.)

Here’s a quick chart that shows the highlights of the Australian guidelines, as they pertain to grains, compared to the American recommendations:

Servings in both countries are now about the same amount of food: one slice of bread or a half cup of cooked rice, pasta, or cooked porridge. It seems to us that the Australian government is now telling its citizens to cut back considerably on grains, by recommending fewer servings overall and defining smaller servings. By contrast, the previous (2003) Australian guidelines said, “The recommended number of daily cereal servings for adults aged 19 to 60 years is four to nine for women and six to twelve for men. A serving equates to two slices of bread; one cup of cooked rice, pasta or noodles; one cup of porridge; one cup ceral flakes; or half a cup of muesli.”

One big difference we noticed between our two countries is that both whole grain and high cereal fiber foods count in the Australians’ call for healthier grains – a sticking point with some nutrition experts in the U.S. who bemoan that bran cereal (for example) gets left out of U.S. recommendations that focus only on whole grains.

Yet, in spite of this nod to fiber, the Aussies make it clear that they understand that there’s more to healthy grains than just cereal fiber. “Key nutrients in wholegrain foods include starch (complex carbohydrate), protein, dietary fibre, B group vitamins, vitamin E, iron, zinc, magnesium and phosphorus. Other protective components are fermentable carbohydrates, oligosaccharides, flavonoids, phenolics, phytoestrogens, lignans, protease inhibitors, saponins, and selenium.”

Okay, okay. I’m not going to give away the whole story, because you may want to read the Australian Dietary Guidelines for yourself. You can download ‘em here. Have a good day, mate. (Cynthia)