One rule of healthy eating is to get enough fiber in your diet. Doing this one thing can lower your chances of developing diabetes, as well as heart disease and stroke. Adequate fiber also helps prevent constipation and hemorrhoids…..2 things that nobody wants! While most Americans get an average of 12-15 gms daily, the recommended amount is 25 – 30 grams a day! (Asians do much better and get about triple that amount daily)
All fiber is not the same. In the last blog it was mentioned that eating natural and unprocessed food is healthy. Well, some processed foods add fiber that is man made (from wood pulp or arthropod shells) This is functional fiber….and it can make your stomach hurt. Anyone who has had too many fiber one bars will attest to this. It is best to keep to natural dietary fiber, of which there are 2 types. Soluble and insoluble, both of which are healthy.
Soluble fiber dissolves in water and consists of carbohydrates present in foods like barley, fruit, legumes, oats, etc. You get the picture. It is the soluble fiber that can lower one’s risk of stroke and heart disease by up to 50%.
Insoluble fiber is made up of plant cell walls and will not dissolve. It can be found in grains such as wheat and rye. Wheat bran is a good example of an insoluble fiber
You can determine how much fiber is in a serving of a food item from the nutritional label on the package. If it is a whole food you can look up the fiber count. For instance, a medium apple with skin has 4.4 grams and 1 cup of prunes has 12.4 grams. A cup of peas has 8.8 grams but a cup of green beans has only 4.0 grams. A cup of beans, however, may have from 11 to 14 grams!
