Foods High in Fiber

Fiber is great in a healthy diet for multiple reasons. First and foremost, the water-absorbing power of fiber can help to keep you regular. This may seem like a relatively trite benefit, but regularity promotes general wellbeing. It also helps to prevent a number of colon issues that can develop later in life, including colon cancer and lazy transverse colon (when food takes a long time to transit the horizontal portion of your colon).

It can also help to stave off other life-threatening diseases such as other cancers, heart disease and diabetes.  This is because fiber plays an important role in removing toxins from your digestive system.

Lastly, foods that are high in fiber can dramatically improve the efficacy of a weight loss program.  By reducing intestinal transit time you help to speed up your metabolism, and therefore make your diet more effective.

Beware of ‘Fiber Marketing’

One thing that’s important to remember is that cereal manufacturers know that we know that fiber is important, and so often overstate the benefit that the fiber in their product has.  For example, the average low-fat breakfast cereal is advertised as being high in fiber, but you would have to eat 30 bowls of it in order to meet your daily fiber requirements.  Compare this to brown bread, of which you only need nine slices per day, and is just as low in fat.

Take a close look at the table above – you might be surprised by how much, or how little, fiber your favourite foods contain. And bear in mind that the average person requires 18-30g of fiber per day.