Dietary fibre is that magical nutrient which is essential for your body. Helping with your digestive system and bowel movement to gradually leading to weight loss, dietary fibre fulfils an important role in your daily diet. A type of carbohydrate, fibre helps the digestive system to be healthy and lowers cholesterol levels.
Health benefits of adding fibre to your diet are immense like reducing the risk of diabetes and maintaining a healthy weight. Dietary fibre is mainly present in fruits, vegetables and whole grain, and it is recommended that men and women should eat 38 and 25 gm of fibre per day, respectively. With consumers becoming more health-conscious, fibre intake becomes imperative.
Whole wheat and multigrain breads & cereals: Add fibre in your morning breakfast with cereals like oats, daliya or breads rich in oats and flax, oats and ragi or multi-grain, which are readily available in the market. 100% whole wheat bread is a great source of fibre and protein. Whole wheat bread with oats and flax provides 23% of daily dietary fibre requirements. Multigrain breads are also packed with grains and seeds like daliya, sorghum and bajra.
Green vegetables and fruits: Eat a minimum of three servings of vegetables and two servings of fruits every day. Berries like raspberries or blackberries have the most fibre. Never peel off apples and sweet potatoes as most of the fibre is present in the skin of the fruit. Eating raw fruits is always better than drinking juice as it does not contain any fibre. Fresh fruits, raw vegetables and low-fat popcorn are good choices for snacks. You can also try strawberries or blueberries because they tend to have less sugar than other fruits.
Legume & lentils: Legumes are rich in fibre and consuming lentils, beans and peas at least thrice a week will help you to reap the health benefits of fibre.
Whole grains & nuts: To have a fibre-rich diet, replace white rice with whole grains like brown, bulgur or wild rice. Also, you can add cereals to your breakfast routine as it contains at least 5 gm of fibre per serving. Eating nuts, seeds and fruits as snacks is beneficial. You can also add them to other items like yoghurt or oatmeal.
(The author is nutritionist, Modern Breads)