How to eat more fibre?

Ah fibre, the least interesting part of any diet. Or is it?

I grew up not liking vegetables very much, and over the years I trained myself to eat more and more plants. The results were worth the pain.

Let me take you through all the cool facts about fibre:

What are they good for?

Years ago, we just thought that fibres were useful to add some bulk to your digestion. There is no good way to say this, so I’ll just go with it: to increase the volume of your poo, prevent constipation and get things running smoothly. But it turns out there are also vital for your microbiome.

All the inhabitants in your guts feed from fibre. And when they don’t feed from them, they use it as a little scaffolding to build their communities. So, the more plants you eat, the happier your bacteria will be. Especially as it helps them outgrow the bacteria feeding from sugar (who can inflame things). I have to say this helps me eat my salad a lot: I have the feeling I am feeding the inhabitants of my own little plant and taking good care of them. It’s a nice feeling

Fibres is a small word for a lot of things.

It includes polysaccharides (so long chains of sugars), resistant starch, resistant oligosaccharides (small chains of sugars). They can be insoluble like cellulose, and be used as a bulk or scaffolding, or they can be soluble and be used by your gut bacteria as food.

So how to pick the right fibres for you?

The answer is: don’t! Diversity is key here, eat as many types as you can and keep your own population happy and thriving. It is recommended that you eat at least 30 different plants a week. Don’t forget, that include cereals too, so it’s not that hard!

Oh and also, as modern humans we really don’t eat enough of them. Before the invention of agriculture, people were probably eating more than 100g of fibres a day. Today the recommended daily amount is 30g a day, and not all of us reach that. Science shows that people who eat 50g a day are largely free of chronic inflammatory disease.