Bran Bran means that the bran portion of the grain is a key component of the product and may not contain any of the germ portion. Products made with only bran (e.g., oat bran) are not whole grain because they don’t contain all three parts of the grain kernel. Some products have bran added to whole grain flours to help boost the fiber content (e.g. Fiber One cereals).

Multigrain This term is used to let you know that more than one grain is used in the product recipe. It doesn’t mean all of them — or any of them — are whole grains!

100% Wheat — this label lets you know that wheat is the only grain used. It doesn’t reveal whether or not the wheat is whole grain wheat.

Cracked Wheat means the wheat grain kernel is broken into coarse, medium, or fine fragments before adding it to the product recipe. This doesn’t mean that the product is made with whole grain wheat.

Organic refers to the method of farming and processing foods. This is unrelated to whether or not a product is whole grain. You need other clues from the package to tell you that.

Pumpernickel is a coarse dark bread made with a mix of rye and wheat flours. It may or may not be made with whole grain flours. Don’t be fooled by the color, either — darker breads don’t necessarily mean whole grain.

Stone Ground refers to a technique for grinding grains. It usually means the grain is coarser and the germ is often intact, but the bran portion is generally not included. In other words, “stone ground” doesn’t let you know if a whole grain was used.