Pick up almost any "multigrain" biscuit or chakli from your local kirana and you will see bold claims on the front of the pack: "5 grains," "multigrain goodness," "enriched with millet." Turn it over and read the ingredients list. Nine times out of ten, maida (refined wheat flour) is the very first ingredient - meaning it makes up the largest share of what you are eating. The multigrain label is real. The health benefit is mostly marketing.

Multigrain vs Whole Grain: They Are Not the Same

Multigrain simply means a product contains more than one type of grain. It says nothing about whether those grains are whole or refined. A snack can contain wheat, oats, ragi and jowar - and still have all of those grains stripped of their bran and germ before processing. What remains is mostly starch: fast-digesting, low in fibre, and not much different from plain maida in terms of how your body handles it.

Whole grain, on the other hand, means the entire grain kernel - bran, germ and endosperm - is used intact. This is where the fibre, B vitamins, minerals and slow-release energy actually live. A snack made with genuine whole grain oats or whole ragi flour behaves very differently in your body compared to one made with a multigrain flour blend that starts with refined wheat.

How to Spot the Trick on the Label

Indian food labelling rules require ingredients to be listed in descending order by weight. This single rule is your best friend when decoding a multigrain claim. Here is what to look for:

• First ingredient is maida or wheat flour - not whole wheat flour - means refined starch dominates, regardless of what grains follow.
• Grain names appear near the end of the list - "oat flour (2%), ragi flour (1.5%)" - these are token amounts added for label appeal, not nutrition.
• "Multigrain flour blend" listed as a single ingredient often hides the individual proportions entirely.
• No mention of "whole" before grain names - whole wheat flour, whole oat flour - is a signal that bran and germ have been removed.

Why Brands Do This

Whole grain ingredients are harder to work with. They shorten shelf life, change texture, and make snacks denser. Refined flour is cheaper, more consistent, and produces the light, crispy texture consumers expect from a packaged snack. Adding small amounts of millet or oats to a maida base costs very little but allows a brand to print "multigrain" in large font on the front of the pack. Under current FSSAI regulations, there is no minimum threshold that defines how much of a grain must be present for the claim to be allowed.

What a Genuinely Better Snack Looks Like

You do not need to give up convenience snacking. You do need to read past the front of the pack. Look for snacks where the first ingredient is a named whole grain or nut - whole oat flour, almond flour, whole ragi flour, or simply almonds. A short ingredients list with recognisable items is a better signal than any grain count printed on the front label.

Practical takeaway: Next time you reach for a multigrain snack, flip it over before it goes in your basket. If maida or "wheat flour" (without the word "whole") is the first ingredient, the multigrain badge is doing more work for the brand than it is for your health.

At The Recipe Tailor, every snack is built around what actually goes in - not what looks good on the front of the pack. Clean ingredients, honest labelling, and no grain-washing.