How To Improve Your Health With Fiber

Eating more fiber isn’t expensive or difficult or disgusting! Fiber helps you feel full, protects you from lots of diseases, and can help you maintain your weight. Some of the health benefits of eating fiber might surprise you!!!   Once you learn How To Improve Your Health With Fiber you will realize that fiber is so much more than just that powder your grandmother used to mix in her drink at night. So many wonderful plant foods are packed with fiber while being full of vitamins + nutrients making you healthier with every bite! Read on!

What is Fiber? 

Fiber exists naturally in plants, the structural part of the plant. To eat fiber, you must eat plants. Complex + unrefined carbohydrates are full of fiber. Fiber is not “digested”, it passes through our digestive systems doing work as it passes through. The best way to get enough fiber is to eat a variety of whole foods/plants.  The only way to get fiber? You guessed it! Eat plants!!!

Fiber + The Gut 

Healthy bacteria in our intestines cannot survive without fiber. In fact, eating more fiber increases the number of healthy bacteria in our guts. To simplify it, fiber feeds the healthy bacteria in our guts + helps them multiply. This process helps us stay healthy in SO MANY ways. More healthy bacteria in our gut, the more protection we have from cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and more. These guys also keep our weight in check, help our immune system + even improve/protect our cognition.  When learning how to improve your health with fiber, the gut + the microbiome are the absolute most important part of the magic formula!

Two Types of Fiber

Soluble + Insoluble.

If it dissolves in water, it is soluble but if it doesn’t, that is the insoluble kind.  

Soluble Fiber: 

• • Absorbs water like a sponge
  • Forms a gel in your gut slowing digestion
  • Great for gut health (acts like prebiotics) 
  • Helps regulate cholesterol + blood sugars 
  • Beans, oats, vegetables, flax seeds, chia seeds, broccoli, barley

Insoluble Fiber: 

• • Does not absorb water 
  • Bulks up stool in the intestines 
  • Prevents constipation, helps things in the intestines ‘move along’ 
  • Whole grains, beans, fruit, corn, nuts, carrots, berries, grapes

Health Benefits of Fiber

• Lowers cholesterol 
• Improves gut flora + health of the microbiome 
• A healthier microbiome = improved mood, cognition, memory, immunity, weight, less chronic disease and diabetes
• Adequate intake helps prevent some chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and colorectal cancer 
• Can help lower inflammation + c-Reactive protein 
• More fiber –> less chance of colorectal cancer
• Stops constipation 💩
• Eat more fiber –> feel more full –> stay satisfied longer –> more likely to maintain a healthy weight 
• Lowers your risk of developing diabetes, helps control blood sugars 

How Much Fiber Should Adults Eat? 

• Men: 19-50 years of age = 38 grams per day, over 50 years old = 31 grams per day 
• Women: 19-50 years of age = 25 grams per day, over 50 years old = 21 grams per day 
• The current average daily intake for adults is 15 grams per day! 15 grams! Way too low!!!

Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Fiber? 

There is not an upper normal limit.  Tolerance for higher amounts of fiber are individual.  Slowly increasing the amount you take in helps ward off any bloating or cramping that come with increasing fiber too quickly. Most people should be more concerned with getting too little rather than getting too much!!!

What About a Fiber Supplement 

All grams of fiber are not created equal. Overall, getting your fiber from whole foods is a much better option. The absolute best choice is lots of different plants aka plant diversity. This helps us grow different varieties of microbes in the gut + helps us get the most out of the fiber we consume.  More plants = more fiber intake = healthier gut = weight control + disease prevention.  Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

Tara’s Tips for Getting in More Fiber: 

• Add fiber slowly to prevent any bloating or abdominal cramping.
• Breakfast is a perfect meal to up your fiber game! Oatmeal, berries, whole grain breads or cereals with “stone-ground” or “whole” on the ingredient list instead of “refined”. 
• Swap out white/refined pastas for brown rice, quinoa, red lentil, or chickpea pasta.  They are super yummy + you often can’t tell the difference!
• Experiment with brown rice, quinoa, barley, or farro instead of white rice to boost fiber content.  
• Beans + legumes are loaded with fiber. Sprinkle chickpeas on top of salad, add black beans in your tacos, make homemade veggie burgers out of lentils.  
• Try alternative flours such as buckwheat or stone ground whole wheat over all-purpose flour.
• Make your snacks count in your fiber count! Try nuts, dried fruits, roasted chickpeas, carrot or celery sticks, fresh popped popcorn, or fruit.  
• Don’t peel your fruit, eat the skins!
• Eat whole fruit instead of drinking the juice.
• Variety, variety, variety.  The more diverse your plant intake is, the better chance you have at getting in enough grams of fiber every day.

Food For Thought

Talking about fiber is not sexy or fun.  Makes you poop, keeps you from getting sick, guilts you into choosing the “whole grain” option over the fluffy white option.  BALANCE! I’m not advising you to never eat white bread or drink juice.  What I am saying is try to make the everyday foods colorful, ‘whole’, ‘real’, with as many plants as you can get on your plate! Leave the fun stuff for when your body says, “I need the fun foods today”.  Listen + eat the ‘sometimes’ foods when some time comes up! When trying to improve your health with fiber or anything else, little everyday choices add up to either big problems or big solutions! You decide!!

Tara’s Favorite Fiber-Packed Recipes to Improve YOUR Health With Fiber!

• Broccoli Sprout Pesto
• Garlic Tempeh and Broccoli
• Easy Lentil Veggie Burger
• Instant Pot Vegan Lentil Soup
• Easy Black Bean Hummus Recipe
• Instant Pot Sweet Potato Corn Chowder
• Healthy Buffalo Chickpea Salad
• Asparagus Salad with Lemon Garlic Dressing
• Quinoa Black Bean Salad with Lime Dressing
• Oil-Free Lentil Hummus Recipe
• Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

All the best,

Tara 🤍

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