谷物是人类的主要营养来源，占美国饮食和热量摄入的主要部分。大多数人每天（通常每天）多次消费基于谷物的产品。因此，谷物是改善食品营养和健康质量的理想机会。由于医疗保健成本高昂，并且肥胖，糖尿病和心血管疾病等生活方式疾病的发生率不断上升，因此消费者对食品的营养质量受到了越来越多的关注。同时，在满足消费者感官期望并保持价格可承受的同时，食品工业在提供可减轻各种疾病的食品方面面临重大挑战。谷物质量计划与植物育种人员，生物技术人员，遗传学家和营养学家保持合作研究，以提供知识和谷物（主要是玉米，小麦和高粱），其成分和
Grains are the primary source of nutrition for mankind and present a major portion of American diet and caloric intake. Most people consume grain-based products on a daily basis, and often, many times a day. Grains thus present an ideal opportunity to improve nutritional and health-promoting quality of foods. With high cost of health care and rising incidences of lifestyle diseases like obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, the nutritional quality of foods available to consumers is under increased scrutiny. At the same time, the food industry faces major challenges in delivering foods that can mitigate the various diseases, while meeting consumer sensory expectations and remaining affordable. The Cereal Quality Program maintains collaborative research with plant breeders, biotechnologists, geneticists, and nutritionists to deliver knowledge and grains (primarily corn, wheat, and sorghum) with improved composition and quality for processing into foods that address the challenges facing the industry and consumers.