Multigrain is the fastest-growing shelf in the atta aisle and the least transparent. The front of the pack is a list of virtues. The back is where the actual product is.
The proportion problem
Most multigrain attas name their grains but not their percentages. "Wheat, soya, chana, oats, ragi" tells you the order by weight — that is a labelling requirement — but not the gap between them.
In practice a blend is often overwhelmingly wheat with modest amounts of everything else. That is not necessarily wrong: too much of a non-wheat flour and the roti stops holding together. But you are paying a premium for grains you may be getting very little of, and you cannot tell how little.
Three things worth checking
1. Ingredient order. Legally by descending weight. If wheat is first and the interesting grain is seventh, you know roughly where you stand.
2. Unnamed collectives. Phrases like "cereal blend" or "mixed grains" as a single ingredient are doing work. Named grains with percentages are the gold standard.
3. Ground together, or mixed after? Rarely stated. Grinding whole grains together produces a different flour than blending pre-ground ones — and blending after is cheaper and far more common.
What we do about it
Our five-grain is ground together, not mixed after, and every proportion is printed on the pack. Not because it makes us noble — because a blend where you cannot see the ratios is a blend you cannot judge or repeat.
And if you would rather set the ratios yourself, that is what the blend builder is for. Pick the base, pick the add-ins, see exactly what you are getting.