**2. Cereals**

Cereals (from Ceres, the Roman goddess of crops and fields) have been the staple food for most people around the world since ancient times. Cereals, especially when consumed as WG [17], are a healthy source of carbohydrates, fiber, and bioactive peptides with anticancer, antioxidant, and antithrombotic effects [18]. In traditional MD [19], grains provide up to 47–50% of the daily calorie intake. The cereals and derivatives mainly consumed in MD are wheat, spelled, oats, rye, barley, and, to a lesser extent, rice and maize. Table 1 summarizes the nutritional properties of all the above cereals.


**Table 1.** Nutritional properties of cereals.
