Fibre. It’s not new, we all know what fibre is. It’s that stuff that your mum scatters on the top of her cereal to keep, ahem, things moving, yeah? Well this is really just scratching the surface, so to speak.

A study commissioned by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and published in The Lancet has demonstrated the importance of fibre in our diets, not just our mum’s. According to the series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses looking at observational studies and clinical trials over the past 40 years, eating at least 25-29g fibre each day led to a 15-30% reduction in all-cause related mortality and cardiovascular-related deaths compared to those with a low fibre intake.

This is pretty exciting stuff. What it means is we now have more reasons to eat whole foods and less reasons to eat processed junk. You see, it’s not just All-Bran that contains fibre. Fibre is abundant in most whole foods – think fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, oats, barley and brown rice. The more processing that occurs to a food, eg. the outer bran being removed from a grain, or peeling the skin off a carrot, the less fibre it will contain. So the moral of the story is to eat foods in their most natural form. They say that fresh is best, and when it comes to fibre, we get the most benefits when we eat an apple as close as it is to the farm, rather than having it as apple juice for breakfast.

Other bonus benefits of fibre? Fibre keeps you fuller for longer by lowering the Glycaemic Index of a meal, it helps to lower cholesterol by flushing the bad stuff out of our arteries, and yes, it helps things move along nicely. I have friends who have a daily Metamucil drink. Forget it guys – eat whole foods and you’ll never need to buy that stuff again!

What foods contain fibre?

• Fresh fruit & vegetables (keep the skin on)

• Nuts eg. almonds, macadamias, walnuts

• Seeds eg. pepitas, linseeds, sunflower seeds

• Legumes eg. chickpeas, lentils, kidney beans

• Wholegrains eg. oats, brown rice, wholemeal bread

 Here’s a sample menu plan for getting plenty of fibre each day:

Breakfast

Swap Corn Flakes for muesli or porridge and serve with Greek yoghurt and fresh strawberries

Snack

Swap your café muffin for an apple and a skinny latte

Lunch

Swap white bread for a wholemeal* bread sandwich with lean protein, cheese and salad

Snack

Swap the choc chip cookie from the office jar for a muesli bar or a handful of nuts

Dinner

Swap white rice for brown rice or sweet potato (with the skin on) and serve with your choice of protein and green veggies

Snack

Swap your block of chocolate during MAFS for a bowl of blueberries and Greek yoghurt, sprinkled with cacao nibs and goji berries

*Did you know, wholemeal bread is higher in fibre than multigrain, and it has the same GI!

This article was first published in Fitness First Magazine and has been reproduced with permission.

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