Nearly All Canadians Think It's Important To Have Enough Whole Grains In Their Daily Diet...

Toronto, ON - According to an Ipsos-Reid survey conducted on behalf of General Mills, more than nine in ten (93%) Canadians think it's important that people get enough whole grain foods in their daily diet, with 57% who say it's "very important."

However, when given a list of three sets of foods and asked which one is a list of only whole grain foods, just one-quarter (27%) correctly identified "whole grain oat cereal, corn on the cob, and brown rice." The other two options were "oatmeal, whole wheat pasta, and split pea soup" and "multigrain crackers, popcorn, and bagels made with wheat flour"; neither of these lists contains only whole grain foods.

Moreover, when told "whole grain foods are only those with a whole grain listed as one of the first ingredients" and asked to think of everything they ate yesterday, just three in ten (31%) said they ate three or more servings, that is the recommended number of daily servings.

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/General Mills poll conducted from December 2nd to December 6th, 2004. The poll is based on a randomly selected sample of 1107 adult Canadians from the Ipsos-Reid Online Panel. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 1773.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.

Nearly All Canadians Think It's Important To Have Enough Whole Grains In Their Daily Diet

More than nine in ten (93%) Canadians think it's important (57% "very important", 36% "somewhat important") that people get enough whole grain foods in their daily diet. Just 7% do not think it's important (6% "not very important", 1% "not at all important").

• Atlantic Canadians (98%), Albertans (98%) and British Columbians (97%) are most likely to think it's important that people get enough whole grain foods in their daily diet, followed by residents of Saskatchewan/Manitoba (95%), Ontario (92%), and finally Quebec (89%).
• Women are slightly more likely than men to think it's important that people get enough whole grain foods in their daily diet (96% vs. 91%).
• Canadians 55 years of age or older are slightly more likely than those 18-54 years of age to think it's important that people get enough whole grain foods in their daily diet (96% vs. 92%).

Yet Most Are Unaware Of Whole Grain Foods

When given a list of three sets of foods and asked which one is a list of only whole grain foods, just one-quarter (27%) of respondents correctly identified "whole grain oat cereal, corn on the cob, and brown rice." One in ten (10%) incorrectly answered "oatmeal, whole wheat pasta, and split pea soup" and 7% incorrectly said "multigrain crackers, popcorn, and bagels made with wheat flour." Another 17% incorrectly answered "all of the above", 14% said "none of the above", and the remaining 25% simply said they don't know.

• Residents of Quebec (33%), Alberta (31%), and British Columbia (30%) are the most likely to correctly identify "whole grain oat cereal, corn on the cob, and brown rice" as the list of only whole grain foods, while residents of Saskatchewan/Manitoba (19%), Atlantic Canada (20%), and Ontario (23%) are less likely to do so.

And Most Are Not Getting The Recommended 3 Daily Servings

When told "whole grain foods are only those with a whole grain listed as one of the first ingredients" and asked to think of everything they ate yesterday, just three in ten (31%) respondents said they ate three or more servings, that is the recommended number of daily servings. In fact, 17% said they ate no servings of whole grain foods yesterday!

For more information on this news release, please contact:
Tim Lauber
Vice-President
Ipsos-Reid
416.324.2900
[email protected]

Ipsos-Reid
Ipsos-Reid is Canada's market intelligence leader and the country's leading provider of public opinion research. With operations in eight cities, Ipsos-Reid employs more than 300 researcher professionals and support staff in Canada. The company has the biggest network of telephone call centres in Canada, as well as the largest pre-recruited household and on-line panels. Ipsos-Reid's Canadian marketing research and public affairs practices are staffed with seasoned research consultants with extensive industry-specific backgrounds, offering the premier suite of research vehicles in Canada--including the Ipsos Trend Report, the leading source of public opinion in the country--all of which provide clients with actionable and relevant information. Ipsos-Reid is an Ipsos company, a leading global survey-based market research group.

To learn more, please visit www.ipsos.ca.

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