No quinoa is not a whole grain if you look at the botanical definition of what a grain is. Whole grains are seeds of grasses. Quinoa is also a seed but comes from another type of plant in the Amaranth family, not from a grass at all.  To make matters confusing, quinoa is often referred to as an Ancient Grain. Which means it has not been genetically modified over the years.  For practical purposes, when a health expert says to eat mostly whole grains, know that quinoa can be lumped in with actual whole grains because it serves a similar purpose of "starch" or "cereal grain" in our diet.