5-minute read · Erzsébet Soltész, dietitian
What kind of diet should you follow for adequate fiber intake?
A microbiome-supporting, fiber-rich diet is the best strategy for maintaining good health. The good news is that it doesn't require anything special at the supermarket or in the kitchen. You don't need to follow a specific diet or avoid particular foods.
The key is making sure that alongside the essential nutrients your body needs, the fibers that matter for your microbiome and digestive system are also present in your diet every day, in adequate amounts and from a variety of sources. To achieve this:
- Choose plant-based ingredients and foods that, in addition to their nutritional value, also provide a combination of prebiotic fibers to support your beneficial gut bacteria.
- Take care of your protein intake: alongside plant-based protein sources, you can eat meat, fish, eggs, and unsweetened dairy products according to your own preferences, in moderation.
- Be mindful with fats. In addition to the natural fat content found in nuts, seeds, eggs, dairy, and lean meats, regularly include quality olive oil and nut or seed oils in your diet.
- Avoid deep frying and ultra-processed foods that are loaded with sugar, salt, fat, and additives.
- Drink water when you're thirsty, and plenty of it alongside a fiber-rich diet.
As straightforward as this list sounds, it can be equally frustrating to figure out how to actually put it into practice on busy weekdays.
Why is it so hard to get started?
The internet is full of an overwhelming number of great recipes featuring fiber-rich plant ingredients. The sheer abundance may actually be part of the problem: most people never end up making the recipes they save. The reasons can include deeply ingrained shopping habits, a lack of motivation, following family food traditions, or reluctance to try unfamiliar ingredients.
Breaking a pattern of low-fiber eating that has built up over decades is not easy. Fortunately, it's not something that has to happen all at once, and even small steps in self-care can take you a long way. Natural fiber sources that can be eaten raw, such as vegetables, fruits, seeds, and nuts, are generally easier to incorporate. Cooking and baking tend to be the bigger challenge.
Beyond the fiber-rich, exciting dishes of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Far Eastern cuisine, the fiber content of popular Hungarian dishes can also be boosted, so family members who are resistant to new foods can keep enjoying their favorite meals in a healthier version.
Of course, for those whose diet has until now consisted mainly of ultra-processed foods and fast food, introducing vegetables, legumes, and wholegrains represents a significant change.
A colorful combination of fibers: cooked, baked, and raw
When you steam, boil, sauté, or bake plant-based ingredients, their fiber content stays in the finished dish, although the size and properties of the fibers are altered by the cooking process. This is actually one of the purposes of heat treatment: to make the nutrients locked within the fiber matrix accessible and more digestible. Without cooking, most fiber-rich ingredients simply couldn't be eaten, meaning you'd miss out on their valuable nutritional content.
Vegetable soups, vegetable-based one-pot dishes, wholegrain side dishes, and dried legumes all enrich your diet with a variety of fibers. Of course, it's also worth including raw plant ingredients, fruits, seeds, and nuts in your diet every day.
When it comes to baking ingredients, you can take a "fiber-forward" approach as well. Instead of traditional recipes built on white flour, sugar, eggs, and margarine, try using higher-fiber flours, ground seeds, beans, chickpeas, oily seeds, nuts, poppy seeds, coconut, and cocoa for both sweet and savory baked goods.
Fiber-conscious cooking can start with upgrading your existing favorite dishes. Here are some concrete ideas to get you started.
Practical tips for increasing fiber content
Serve cream soups with dry-toasted seeds or cooked pearl barley instead of soup pearls or croutons.
- In meat-based dishes, you can mix in an equal amount of red beans, white beans, or chickpeas alongside the meat. In a pinch, unseasoned canned versions work perfectly well.
- Legumes are also available in flour and pasta form: chickpea flour can be used to thicken soups and stews in a Greek yogurt roux, and red lentil pasta is a great alternative to traditional white pasta — and it's delicious.
- Leftover wholegrain bread can be dried out thoroughly, crushed, and used as breadcrumbs for coating. In that case, bake the meat or vegetables in the oven rather than frying them in oil.
- Oat bran can be added to cottage cheese dumplings, layered dishes, or meatballs — almost any version can handle a tablespoon or two. In recipes for meatballs or meat loaf, the white bread or bread roll can be replaced with wholegrain bread or a combination of rolled oats and oat bran.
- Oat flour or rolled oat flour can replace wheat flour in mildly sweet dishes such as sauces, vegetable stews, pancakes, and chocolate cookies — it can be swapped in a 1:1 ratio for white flour.
- In layered vegetable bakes, white rice can be replaced with brown rice, bulgur, or pearl barley. For a healthier twist, use ground turkey and live-culture Greek yogurt instead of fatty sour cream.
- Bulgur is a fiber-rich side dish, especially when combined with vegetables. This cracked durum wheat is a friendly ingredient that softens quickly — after bringing it to a boil, cover it and let it rest, or keep it on the lowest heat until it has absorbed twice its volume in water.
- Ground almonds and oily seed flours are expensive, but they make a significant difference to the fiber content of sweet baked goods and savory pastries, and everything tastes better with them. An oat flour and rolled oat cookie with ground walnuts and dark chocolate, lightly sweetened, is a real fiber bomb. If any are left over, you can keep them at the office or in the car for busy days.
- A walnut or almond or two can always be placed on top of oat cookies or muffins, and most mixed batter recipes can be enriched with a spoonful or two of roughly chopped almonds, walnuts, or even desiccated coconut.
- Sprinkle sesame seeds, flaxseeds, sunflower seeds, or pumpkin seeds on top of bread rolls and savory sticks: they add valuable nutrients and fiber even to traditional white flour recipes.
Increase your fiber intake gradually
Fiber is beneficial, but don't overdo it. If you're starting from a low fiber intake, switching to several high-fiber meals a day all at once is too big a change for your digestive system and may also catch your microbiome off guard. By increasing fiber intake gradually, the initial bloating and gas that some people experience can usually be avoided.
Alongside fiber-rich cooked dishes, let raw or minimally processed vegetables and fruits, wholegrain breads and baked goods, and nuts and oily seeds all contribute to your daily fiber intake. You can also supplement this with additive-free, natural fiber extracts. And don't forget to drink enough water: aim for 50 ml of fluid per gram of fiber, which means a daily intake of 2 liters will reliably cover your needs.
Sources used:
Soltész E., Gajda Z. Fiber is good! Budapest: BOOOK Publisher; 2020
