Why Eat Fiber? By Cassandra Cox At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Nutritionists and health care practitioners often recommend a high fiber diet to their clients. Touted for its benefits to the cardiovascular system, experts suggest fiber will help us do everything from maintaining healthy cholesterol levels, to supporting a healthy blood sugar balance. As a digestive care educator, I typically discuss the benefits that fiber provides to our intestinal tract. In particular, that fiber can help promote regularity and assist with the normal detoxification process that takes place in our colon.

Fiber is the indigestible parts of plants. There are two types of fiber, soluble and insoluble. Both types of fiber are needed in a healthy diet, because each type of fiber provides a different benefit to the healthy body. Let me offer a simple illustration: imagine your typical kitchen sponge. It has two sides, each of which serves a purpose to properly clean your sink of dishes. The soft absorbent side of the sponge can represent soluble fiber. The scrubby side of the sponge represents insoluble fiber.

Soluble fiber is found in foods such as fruit pectin. It dissolves in water, forming a gel, and absorbs water soluble materials such as cholesterol and excess toxins. This can assist body’s natural process of elimination. It also provides food for intestinal flora, promoting a healthy intestinal environment. By absorbing liquids, soluble fiber can help form our stool, alleviating bothersome problems such as occasional diarrhea.

The scrubby side of the sponge represents insoluble fiber, which is also known as roughage. This is found in foods such as bran and fibrous fruits and vegetables. This type of fiber provides bulk to the bowel, sweeping clean the intestinal wall, and helping to promote regularity.

Balanced correctly, soluble and insoluble fiber work together, like a sponge and a scraper to help maintain the digestive tract. A diet rich in fruits, vegetables and grains will give you a ratio of roughly 25% - 35% soluble fiber and 65% - 75% insoluble fiber.

The National Institutes of Health recommends that adults consume 20-35 grams of fiber every day, but most Americans are lucky if they consume 12-15 grams of fiber in their average diet. This is often blamed on the Standard American Diet, (or S.A.D.) which consists of high fat entrees, refined forms of carbohydrates, and low in raw fruits and vegetables.

Experts are calling us to eat more fiber, so we can begin to receive the benefits to a healthy digestive and cardiovascular system. With the small amount of fiber people consume every day, supplementation is an easy and convenient solution.

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