Part 4 – The Unsung Hero of Nutrition

The answer is ‘Fiber’!!  Anyone that watches television has seen the commercials singing the praises of a fiber supplement.  This raises some questions – Why do we need Fiber?  What does it do for our Health? and Why do we need supplements for this & not other food related products?  I will attempt to answer these questions in a simple straight forward manner in this article.

Dietary fiber actually comes in 2 forms:  Soluble & Insoluble.  But what is it?  In technical terms it’s a polymer which means a long chain of molecules hooked together. Dietary fiber typically comes from the cell wall of plants. Cellulose, pectin, lignin, waxes & mucilage are some of the many types of fiber. Surprisingly many fibers are a good source of nutritional sugars that our body uses for cellular communication, but that’s another subject!!

Soluble fiber is digestible by the “good” bacteria in our colon (large intestine). These fibers thus provide support for these bacteria & this is the main reason we should eat plenty of fiber. It is of interest to note that scientists say that these bacteria & their various functions is where the 1^st prevention of many diseases actually start. Big diseases like Diabetes, Heart Disease & even many cancers are reduced by fiber intake. [more details can be found in the book ‘Choices’] Studies of other cultures who naturally eat a higher fiber diet have shown a significantly lower rate of all gastrointestinal & related problems. Shift the diet of a group moving from the country where they ate fresh produce to a city where the diet is mostly processed foods & we see a natural increase of all the above named diseases. Now this doesn’t take into account the change of other nutrients such as vitamin & minerals.

So, how much do we need? The recommended daily allowance as formatted by the government says we need 20-35 grams daily. A typical Western diet often gives a person less than 10 grams

Contrast that with our hunter-gatherer ancestors who often consumed 100 grams daily & you can see why our intestinal health is not what it should be. Only those who daily consume at least 5 servings of fruits &/or vegetables even come close to getting the daily requirement. It is no wonder that many physicians now endorse the commercials that say get more fiber with our supplement!! Interesting that they don’t recognize the need for other supplements as well, but this is changing.

Remember what we don’t eat we must supplement if we want truly good health particularly as we age!!

Tags: benefits of fiber, fiber, nutrition