8 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD EAT FOODS WITH HIGH FIBER CONTENT.
Dietary Fiber also known as Non-starch Polysaccharides (NSP) is the indigestible part of the diet. Foods with high fiber content will help you feel full, lose or manage your current weight, sustain and also improve your overall well being.
In this article, we are going to cover much on dietary fiber including it’s sources, benefits and how you can add more fiber to your diet to get the best out of your meals.
Here is a breakdown of what is covered in this article.
• What is dietary fiber?
• The two main types of dietary fiber.
• 8 Health benefits of dietary fiber.
• Minimum daily fiber requirement.
• How to add fiber to your diet.
• How to make the switch to a fiber diet.
• How you can add fiber to fast foods.
• Fiber supplements.
Now let’s dive in and look at each of the above in detail. Kindly read through each subheading to get the most out of this article.
What is dietary fiber?
Fiber (roughage) can be defined as that part of the plant based food that can not be broken down by the human digestive system. In other words, most of this fiber is usually excreted as undigested food material.
Though fiber isn’t digested by the body, it will help clean your gastrointestinal tract (GIT) leaving your gut healthy. This also helps ease your bowel movements, eliminates toxic GIT waste products and other harmful bacteria out of your body.
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Other than improving your digestion, dietary fiber is also associated with low risk of diabetes, heart diseases, helps maintain a healthy skin, helps in weight loss, helps in regulating Cholesterol levels and prevents stroke.
There are two main types of dietary fiber. Soluble and insoluble fiber.
Soluble fiber
As the name suggests, Soluble fiber easily dissolves in water. This type of fiber is associated with reduced Cholesterol levels and blood sugars. It can be obtained in larger quantities in the following foods.
• Beans
• Oatmeal
• Nuts
• Barley
• Berries
• Apples
• Citrus fruit
• Pears.
Insoluble Fiber.
This type of fiber is not water soluble. It is much bulkier than the soluble fiber. It’s very helpful in improving bowel movements and helps prevent constipation.
Main sources of insoluble fiber include:
• Wheat cereals
• Whole grains
• Vegetables.
• Soya beans.
Even though fiber has the two types as shown above, one food variety can have both types, a reason why it is recommended that most of your diet should consist mainly of natural, unprocessed foods. This is because the more natural and unprocessed your food is, the higher it’s concentration of dietary fiber.
Most of the processed foods such as white bread and pastries have less to no fiber at all. Therefore these foods should be eaten infrequently if one is to harness the benefits of healthy eating.
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8 Health benefits of dietary fiber.
Recent research has revealed that a great percentage of Americans don’t eat enough daily dietary fiber. 9 out of ten Americans fall in this category. This however affects other parts of the world equally.
This problem may be linked to the abundance of processed foods available on the market these days and lack of enough time to prepare natural, organic, home cooked meals. The association goes a long way in regard to the busy working schedules.
Even though it’s becoming harder to get a rich fiber diet these days, a few weekly servings of the same will help boost your immune system, improve how you look and feel and also improve your overall health.
Some of the health benefits of dietary fiber include:
1. Gastro intestinal Tract (GIT) health.
Fiber improves bowel movements by making stool bulkier and easier to eliminate. Incase one has constipation or diarrhea, a fiber diet does the magic since stools will return to normal and provide relief.
Studies have also shown that a rich fiber diet will help relieve or cure symptoms of Gastro esophageal reflux disease (GERD) and ulcers by reducing gastric acid secretions. A rich fiber diet helps in providing reduced risk for intestinal inflammation, hemorrhoids, kidney stones, gall stones, and also provide a reduced risk for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).
2. Healthier Gut Bacteria
The bacteria found in the small and large intestines of our digestive system feed on the fiber that we eat. These bacteria have a range of health benefits one being the production of short-chain fatty acids which help in lowering systemic Inflammations.
These Inflammations have been linked to many chronic health problems and obesity. For these bacteria to multiply easily and perform their function, they need a consistent supply of fermented fiber in the gut.
These bacteria also help in biotin (a water soluble vitamin) synthesis which is associated with the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. In other words, you get your Metabolism boosted through a high fiber diet.
3. Cardiovascular health.
Dietary fiber is good for your heart. Dietary fiber helps lower the bad cholesterol (Low Density Lipoproteins/LDL) and improves the High Density Lipoproteins (HDL) / the good Cholesterol. This in turn improves blood circulation hence improving heart health.
A fiber rich diet is important for reducing your risk for coronary heart diseases, diabetes and stroke. It does this by reducing your risk for metabolic syndrome (a group of risk factors) associated with the mentioned above illnesses.
High dietary fiber has also been associated with a reduction in blood pressure, reduced inflammation and loss of weight and excess fat especially waist or belly fat.
4. Reduced cancer risk.
This applies to mainly Gastrointestinal tract cancers. Inconclusive research has suggested that eating and maintaining a fiber rich diet is associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer.
It has also been suggested that a fiber rich diet can help prevent mouth, pharynx, and stomach cancers.
A fiber diet is able to achieve the above stunning results since many foods rich in fiber also contain numerous antioxidants important for eliminating toxic free radicals.
5. Diabetes.
Insoluble fiber helps lower the risk for type 2 diabetes. For diabetics, soluble fiber could help you slow down sugar absorption hence improving your overall blood sugar levels over time.
In a recent analysis of 19 researches about the association between a high fiber diet and lowered risk for type 2 diabetes, it was found out that people who ate more than 26 grams of fiber daily, had a reduced risk for increased blood sugars by 18%. Not only is a high fiber diet linked to reduced Diabetes risk, it also helps maintain a healthy weight.
6. Skin health.
The antioxidants in fiber foods help eliminate toxins from the body especially through stool. This helps lower the amount of toxins eliminated through skin, which in turn lowers the risk for acne development.
This will help in development of a smooth and healthy skin.
7. Living loner.
People who have a high fiber diet over years have been shown to live longer. Research put their longevity at 19% more than those who don’t.
8. Lose weight.
Did you know that having a high fiber diet is one way one can use to lose weight naturally? Below is how.
How dietary fiber helps in weight loss
Other than improving bowel movements and preventing constipation, dietary fiber helps in managing and losing weight. Here is how. Most foods rich in dietary fiber are bulky foods, hence once taken, they will create a feeling of fullness for the most part of the day.
This will in turn reduce the food cravings and reduce the need for snacking. Simple logic, less food consumed means less free energy stored inform of excess fat.
In another way, high fiber foods have fewer calories. Since calories have a greater role in weight gain, this means that with a less calorie intake, one can manage their weight easily.
Therefore, cutting down or substituting your high calorie foods (sweetened and processed foods) for low calorie foods such as fruits and vegetables, you can easily cut down your weight in a few weeks.
In a recent study found in the Annals of Internal medicine, people (dieters) we’re able to lose a lot of weight when told to get not less than 30 grams of fiber daily without any other dietary restrictions. This also proves that even if you increase your fiber intake as the only dietary change, you can lose weight.
In another study, it showed that doubling the fiber intake to the recommended amount over a period of one year, could help one lose on average between 90 to 130 calories from their daily intake. On average resulting into 9-13 pound weight loss over a one year period.
Other ways how a high fiber intake can aid weight loss.
• A high fiber diet helps in blood sugar regulation. This helps maintain your metabolism and prevent insulin spikes that tend to leave you with hunger and excess cravings for food.
• Since fiber aids digestion, most of the fat gets bound to the fiber and can easily be passed through the GIT and eliminated. With less fat being absorbed, excess fat especially belly fat and weight can easily be lost.
• With a fiber diet especially of fruits, you will be packed with the essential vitamins, minerals and energy to aid in your exercise routines.
Maintain a Healthier Weight Over Time on a fiber diet.
No one ever wants that excess fat or weight back. Yeah, that’s for sure. Dietary fiber will not only help you lose weight but will also help you keep it off so as much as you want.
Below is a table indicating the minimum recommended daily fiber intake in grams.
Age Male Female
9-13 31 26
14-18 38 26
19-30 38 25
31-50 38 25
51-70 30 21
Over 70 30 21
Source: Food and Nutrition Information Center, USDA.
How to add fiber to your diet.
The daily fiber intake is dependent on your age and gender. As shown from the above table, the range for daily fiber intake is 21-38 mg for perfect health.
Even when the daily required amount is low, research suggests that many of us are not eating half of that amount. However, by including a few fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, you easily get the fiber you need to hit your health goals.
Whole grain fiber.
Sweetened, and or processed foods have low to no fiber since most of it is removed while in processing. To get the most fiber from your diet, you should therefore include whole grains to most of your daily food servings.
Below are some ways through which you can add whole grain fiber to your diet.
• Fiber at breakfast.
As said before, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It helps you stay full for the most part of the day hence you won’t need to snack a lot or have large meal servings at lunch and or dinner.
Adding extra fiber to your breakfast will not only increase your satiety feeling but will also improve your digestion, lessen your daily calorie intake and help you avoid unnecessary snacking.
You can easily add a few fiber grams to your daily breakfast by switching from the unhealthy processed breakfast foods to home made unprocessed foods. For example by switching from corn flakes to bran flakes or all bran or fiber one will give you an extra fiber boost daily.
You could otherwise add a few tablespoon of the unprocessed wheat bran to your favorite cereal if the above mentioned recommendations aren’t your type.
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• Switch to unprocessed rice, barley, whole wheat pasta. Instead of white rice, pasta and bread, you could instead try out something else. In this case, being brown rice, whole grain, wild rice, whole grain bread etc.
Try out the organic, unprocessed foods. You may end up liking the taste you get from your wild venture in addition to the nutritional benefits that come along.
• Whole grain flour for white flour. Whole grain flour is heavier and bulkier than white flour. If you want to get the most out it especially while doing your normal baking routine, it’s advisable that you switch to using whole grain flour instead of white flour for most if not all of your baking sessions.
For your home made muffins, cakes, and cookies, you could add them the unprocessed wheat bran or the crushed bran cereal. This adds the crunchy taste. Psyllium husk could also be added to the gluten free breads, pizza dough and pasta.
For yeast breads, a bit more yeast can be added or you can let the dough rise longer than normal.
• Flaxseeds. These contain a high amount of fiber and omega-3. Omega-3 is a type of the good fat that also has several sources, flax seeds being one. Flaxseeds can easily be growing using a hand motor or coffee grinder and then added to your cereal breakfast, yogurt or applesauce.
Vegetable and Fruit fiber.
How to add more fruits and vegetables to your daily diet.
Below are some tips and strategies to add fruits and vegetables to your daily diet.
• Fruits at breakfast. Why not add a little bit of fruit to your breakfast. Most fruits especially mango and berries are high in fiber. By adding these to your morning cereal or yogurt, you easily get the morning fiber you want.
• Make use of your refrigerator. Since most fruits and vegetables have a low shelf life, they can easily be maintained by refrigeration. For fruits, they can be washed and cut into smaller pieces, put on a bowel and kept in a fridge for easy reach.
These can serve as snacks, another great way for switching from unhealthy to healthy snacks. On the other hand, vegetables can also be kept fresh through refrigeration.
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• Have a fruit instead of desert. Instead of having a desert at the end of a meal, you could eat a fruit like apple, banana and any other.
• Drink less fruit juice, eat more whole fruits. Most fruit juice is carefully sieved hence contains less fiber since most of it is sieved out and therefore fruit juice is more in calories than fiber.
On the contrary, whole fruit contains more fiber with less calories. To take an example, a glass of orange juice has about 110 calories with little to no fiber while a medium sized orange contains about 60 calories with about 3grams of fiber.
• Don’t peel the fruit. A fruit’s peel most times contains more fiber than the inside. When you peel fruits like apple or pears, you miss out on the important fiber from the peeling. Therefore, to get the most out of your fruits, limit peeling them and eat them whole.
• Add more vegetables to your cooking routine. Apart from adding color and flavor, vegetables add more fiber to your soups or meals. Therefore, add your well chopped fresh or frozen vegetables to your sauce as regularly as possible.
• Make soups and salads bulkier. Seeds, nuts, peas, beans can be added to your salad to make it more lively. For soup stews, you can add peas, lentils and rice to make the soup much more tasty and high in fiber.
• Legumes. Legumes such as black beans, peas, kidney beans, lentils and many more contain fiber. Adding them to your soups or salad is another great way to improve your fiber intake.
Legumes are not limited to fiber as the sole nutritional value but are also high in protein and other micronutrients.
• Get the most out of your snacks. Instead of grabbing a burger at snack time, why not substitute it for nuts, or raw vegetables or either fresh or dried fruit.
I know this sounds so boring but look, the whole issue here is to get as much nutritional fiber as possible. Therefore by doing the substitution, you are getting a healthy, high fiber snack.
How to switch to a high-fiber diet.
If you want to start on a high fiber diet, I recommend you not to all over sudden add large amounts of it to your daily servings. This is because if you suddenly add a lot of fiber to your meals, you will overload your digestive system with a substance that it’s not familiar with.
Guess what, the only thing you will get will be GIT disturbances like bloating, abdominal cramping, intestinal gas, and or diarrhea. But don’t worry because this won’t happen to you since you are already here.
Instead, fiber should be added gradually to your diet, smaller portions at first (when you are just starting your high fiber diet journey) and then increased with time. This will allow time for your digestive system to adjust and cope up with the fiber and will also help you not to have the side effects above.
Another tip that you should know of is that fiber absorbs a lot of water. Hence, you should drink a lot of fluids if you are on a high fiber diet.
SUMMARY.
Start with smaller fiber containing food portions and increase with time. Always have fiber containing foods included at every meal serving.
How to add Fiber to fast foods.
Who doesn’t love fast foods. I know many of us out there love fast foods. Leave alone the convenience, they are cheap too. Trouble sets in when you want to maintain your fiber intake even when having a fast food.
A lot of fast foods have little to no fiber. All they contain is the bad fat, calories and sodium. Even simple lettuce greens which one could consider being healthy, contain just around 0.5 grams of fiber a cup.
Finding a fast food restaurant that serves healthy meals with sufficient fiber is nowadays so hard. But what do you do to maintain your fiber diet even with fast foods.
To add or bulk up the fiber even when you go for fast foods, do the following:
1. Add nuts, beans or corn to your snack.
2. Select burgers, sandwiches or subs that come from whole wheat bun.
3. Choose nuts or salads to fried potatoes or chips.
4. Have an oatmeal for breakfast instead of a breakfast sandwich. Oatmeals have more fiber than sandwiches.
5. Have a vegie burger. Vegie burgers have 2-3 times more fiber than meat burgers.
6. Top up a fast food with a fruit. If possible eat a whole fruit instead of fruit juice. You could eat an apple or any other fruit.
7. Combine one food with a spice for example, add chili to baked potato. You end up with a tasty high fiber meal.
Fiber from Fiber supplements
We have covered what I believe is much about fiber. But what if you are unable to get the fiber naturally as recommended above. Do you just give up? The answer is NO. There are a lot of fiber supplements on the market which can help you make up for the fiber shortfall.
These supplements are presented as powder, chewable tablets and many other forms. These will help you get the fiber you will want but fiber supplements have their shortcomings as shown below.
Pros of fiber supplements.
• They help you to make up for the fiber that you would other wise get from food naturally.
• Time consuming since you don’t have to spend time preparing the fiber food.
• They can be got easily.
Cons of fiber supplements.
• They don’t provide the essential vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that would otherwise be got from a high fiber diet.
• They won’t help you manage your weight.
• They won’t fill you up for the most part of the day.
• They can easily interact with other medications and either increase the drugs’ concentration or side effects. It’s better you consult your doctor before starting on any fiber supplement.
• They may Interfere with your blood sugar levels.
As with the case with fiber foods, if you are to use a fiber supplement, start with smaller quantities and increase gradually.
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Conclusion.
Sticking to a high fiber diet is a great way to not only improve your gut health but to also lose and maintain your weight and improve your overall health.
Whether you start on the high fiber diet or not is your personal option. The views expressed in this article are carefully researched and crafted to help individuals looking for ways to eat healthy, keep off weight and live better.
Did I miss anything?
Which strategy from today’s post are you going to tryout first?
Or maybe I didn’t mention one of your favorite ways on adding fiber to your diet.
Either way, Leave a comment below and let me know.
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