Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Keeping the Pipes Clean: it's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it!

Fiber (aka ruffage, or as my mom calls it, "cardboard") is a component of food that, although not actually a nutrient, bears equal weight as vitamins and minerals in the promotion of health...especially for preventing colon cancer and heart disease. Americans under-consume fiber so much that just 13g more per day across the nation would reduce the colorectal cancer rate by 31%.

Our bodies actually do not derive energy from fiber; it is any material in plants for which we lack the enzymes to digest (but other animals such as cows successfully get energy from fiber such as grass). The not-so-pretty reality is that fiber is an essential fuel for the bacteria residing in our colons. It's a natural and necessary partnership that we have with these little guys, and they do a lot of work that they don't get enough credit for (and get wiped out when people "cleanse" their colons). Resident bacteria are able to use fiber for food, promoting their proliferation. Here's why we want them to succeed:

1) the good bacteria scavenge our intestines for toxins and carry the toxins out when they exit our better end, 2) their colonization prevents pathogenic microbes from taking hold and causing illness, such as E. coli or salmonella, 3) certain bacteria inhibit growth of tumor cells, 4) their eating habits (fermentation) produces an acidic environment that prevents our good bile from being converted to cancer-causing secondary bile acids, 5) Lactobacillus acidophilus bacteria prevents the conversion of pro-carcinogens to actual carcinogens 6) they produce fatty acids which serve as fuel for new colon cells, denying toxins or carcinogens the chance to take root. Basically, they do a lot of good work in there, which is why we should feed them.

You'll see fiber in two forms- soluble and insoluble -under the category "dietary fiber" on your food labels. Both are functional and necessary, and a good balance of the two keeps things moving. Together they provide many benefits:
       -Fibers increase our feeling of fullness so can help in controlling hunger and weightloss. 
       -They slow down digestion of a meal, which leads to a more controlled release of nutrients for more
         stable blood sugar levels.
       -Fiber acts like a sponge, sopping up fats and cholesterol in its path and reducing their presence in the
         bloodstream (read: heart and artery health, and lower LDL levels). This property is also why it is
         essential, though, to drink enough water to keep high-fiber foods from clogging the pipes.

As you can see, consuming higher amounts of fiber benefits not only our downstairs tenants, but many other aspects of bodily health. The current daily recommendation is 25g for women and 38g for men. But I don't advocate an increase in fiber supplements, which are usually nutrient deficient. Instead you can find fiber in the following DELICIOUS foods, and many others:

Raw:                                                                        Cooked:
Blueberries - 3.5 g per cup                                       Beans - 11-19 g per cup
Pears - 5.1 g each                                                  Oranges - 3.4 g each   
Almonds - 3.3g per ounce                                        Broccoli - 5.1g per cup
Raisin bran - 5.0 g per cup                                       Brown rice - 3.5 g per cup
                                                                             Oats - 5.7 g per cup
                                                                              
So do your part for colon and heart health - and appreciate all the dirty work that gets done while you go about your day - by incorporating more fiber into YOUR diet!

1 comment:

  1. Hey Janelle!
    I love your blog. I like the fact about raisins, I always figured that dark raisins were purple grapes and golden raisins were green. Thats crazy that its a preservative, gross.

    ReplyDelete