How to Get More Fiber in Your Diet

I’m Candy ***, a Registered Dietitian from Sharp HealthCare, and today we’re going to talk about how to add fiber to your diet. Where do you find it? Fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and beans is where you’ll find fiber. Now why in the world do you want fiber? First of all, fiber fills you up before it fills you out. Fiber foods are high in water content, low in calories, and you can eat a lot of food without getting heavy. The next thing that fiber is really good for, and we all know this, is that it helps with regularity; it helps speed the digestive track and keep us going really well. Now when you check for fiber in foods, particularly in your bread, you want to make sure you’re getting 100% whole grain bread. So how you do that is check the ingredient label and make sure the ingredient says made with 100% whole wheat bread or made from sprouted wheat bread, then you know you’re getting a whole grain. Sometimes out there you’ll find a brown looking bread, but the first ingredient is enriched flour, so it’s not too much better than it’s really low fiber counterpart, the enriched white bread, that we’re really trying to avoid if we really want to add fiber to our diet. Certain of the fibers, particularly the ones that are found in oatmeal and beans, help stabilize blood sugar and help lower cholesterol – you definitely want that on your side. So, we find fiber foods in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and beans. And now you know how to add fiber to your diet.