Finding Fiber 101

I have become quite the fiber-sneaker-inner.  It makes you feel full and helps fight heart disease.  Enough fiber in your system (25g for women daily & 40g for men daily), helps your body to create larger bulks of food, because the fiber we're talking about is indigestible.  These bulks trigger greater peristalsis - movement of the muscles of your digestive tract - to keep it moving through your system and shorten the transit time.  Aka, healthy GI tract and no lingering particles to collect and hang out in there.  Dr. Oz likes to say, "Admire your work" when he talks on the benefits of fiber. I won't get into too much detail on that one, but he certainly does - feel free to Google. Suffice to say, he explains the end result pretty well. Just remember: Add fiber gradually to your daily intake, lest ye get a bloaty, gassy belly, as well as frequent, potentially-uncomfortable trips to the restroom. 

I thought I'd share some ways to squeeze some fiber into your days so you can begin or enhance your quest to have a nice healthy system going.  Many fiber options await you..

A good place to start?  Fiber One Original cereal.  The other Fiber One varieties are tasty, such as frosted shredded wheat or caramel delight, and they might be good as part of a homegrown trail mix, but they come hand-in-hand with added sugar, which is a no-no most-most of the time-time.  Add a mere 1/4 cup of Fiber One Original to nonfat yogurt or your usual morning cereal bowl, and get a whopping addition of 7 grams of fiber for a scant 30 calories.  Not too shabby.  I also bake with Fiber One by heating a 1/2 cup serving with some water, mashing the concoction, and adding it to the ingredient bowl of muffins right when you mix dry and wet ingredients together.  Hungry Girl, (though I am not a diehard fan of her super-low-calorie diet plans), uses Fiber One to great advantage by crunching it up and using it in lieu of breadcrumbs for oven "frying."  Great idea!  Though I prefer Fiber One to All Bran (a personal preference; only slight differences per the nutrition label), I do like All Bran's Bran Buds.  They are verastile and meld nicely into homemade granola or homemade protein bars for very few calories.

We all have been battered near to death by the whole grain wave, and thus we know that grain items made with whole grain tend to have a nice serving of fiber, as they include not only the endosperm of the grain, but also the bran and the germ.  My rule of thumb with buying bread and items of the like are that they must have a fiber content of at least 3g fiber per serving. 



I love love love english muffins and their nookiness and cranniness.  Weight Watchers and Lite Thomas english muffins are staple in my fridge, and each delivers around 8 g of fiber for around 100 calories.  Yes, they are processed. I make no apologies, Tosca.  But, as an amends, I also support the consumption of sprouted grain bread, which my boyfriend likes to call 'Jesus Bread' because I buy the version that says 'Ezekiel' on it.  (He likes his little joke.)  In sprouted grain bread, not only do you get a nice dose of fiber, but you get the benefit of the high nutritional profiles of young, recently sprouted grains. 

Do you listen to Howard Stern?  Robin Quivers often gets mocked for her mysterious murky green drink (among other things).  Robin adds a very finely ground green-hued powder, cleverly called Green Powder, to her beverages for a monster nutrient kick.  It is for the most part a proprietary blend of plant leaves, roots, and extracts in varying levels by various manufacturers.  I like Amazing Grass Green Superfood Powder.  For a bang of naturally-acquired vitamins and minerals, you also get 2g of fiber for very few calories.  It tastes kind of like tea, but does in fact inseparably come with an odd green color.  Healthy, but not quite exactly like Mother said:  Drink your peas! 

Don't look only to breads and grains for fiber.  Fruits & veggies are, of course, a gold mine.  Learn to love, if you don't already, a baked sweet potato with Smart Balance Buttery Burst Spray, and a sprinkling of nutmeg and cinnamon.  4g of fiber and quite the yum factor and nutrient powerhouse.  A handful of raspberries packs about 5g of fiber.  Too many fiber-filled options to list from the produce section!  And when eating fruits and veggies, be sure to eat the skin if you can, generally speaking.  The skin is what protects the rest of the fruit or veggie - you want those protective factors too. 

I am not so much a fan of Benefiber and other likely culprits.  Broken down, fiber content to calorie and other-nutrient content, there are better bets out there.  I started my fiber journey there, and I wouldn't judge you (much) for doing the same, but I urge you to find and enjoy fiber in its natural states, not added to a cup of coffee via Benefiber, or for that matter, a packet of artificial sweetener. 

I have only begun to peddle fiber into your life.  I could probably write a term paper on smart fiber sources; this could be a multi-part segment.  Thrilling!  So, more ideas soon.  Til next time, happy endings to you all.