Fiber keeps you full longer, fiber makes you regular, fiber helps you lose weight! Everyone is so caught up with the fiber trend lately that it is ending up in all kinds of non-fibrous products. I saw a commercial for fruit loops and other kid cereals with added fiber. I was at the grocery store the other day looking for Crystal Light and I was surprised that you can even get the water mixers with fiber.
The typical American diet is full of processed food without fiber that companies are now capitalizing on this by adding it back in and promoting health benefits. I absolutely agree with all the benefits of fiber. The part that I find confusing is the need to take a food with fiber, process it to death to remove the fiber, and then use some kind of additive to put the fiber back in.
It just seems so much easier (not to mention healthier) to just eat something that is closer to its natural state. I decided to google to find out more. It turns out that there is no official RDA for fiber but experts recommend that you get 20 – 25g of fiber per day. The average American gets much less than that – 15g or so per day.
Another quick google search shows that to get the recommended amount of fiber you should eat whole grains, oatmeal and things like that. Since I follow a primal eating plan, I don’t eat grains and related foods that you think of when talking fiber. So how on earth can I be expected to get enough fiber without grains?! There’s no way. Ha, no problemo at my house. Don’t you worry.
I track everything I eat in my handy Fitday app and in a typical day I get more than my fair share of fiber even with no grains involved. No beans, bread, rice, whole grains, oatmeal. Since I workout hard, I do eat sweet potatoes and bananas for carbs and workout days.
As you can see from the pic, I get almost double the recommended amount of fiber. That’s 49.5g fiber on a typical day. Yep. Plus I get the added bonus of unprocessed foods, no preservatives, no faux fiber. I don’t have to buy fiber powder for my water or fancy sugared cereals so I save a ton of money too.
Do you track your food, calories, and fiber? How much fiber do you get in a day?
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