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Healthy Diet Plans >>  Diet and Weight Loss >>  Fiber Facts

Fiber Facts

Fibers are those parts of the plant food that cannot be digested. It is absent in foods of animal origin.

Types of fiber
  1. Insoluble Fiber – These fibers are capable of absorbing many times their own weight in water, creating a soft bulk to the stool that can pass the waste products out of the body. These insoluble fibers promote regular bowels and decrease risk of colon cancer.
  2. Soluble Fiber – Fruits, vegetables, beans, oat bran, dried peas and flax seeds are good sources of soluble fiber. These fibers form a gel that slows down the absorption of simple sugars from the intestine. They also help in regulating blood sugar levels, lowers blood cholesterol and is helpful in weight control, as emptying of stomach is slow, there is a feeling of fullness, decrease in hunger causing fewer consumption of calories.
  3. Resistant Starch – Breads, cereals, legumes, potatoes and rice are good sources.
    They resist normal digestive process, but bacteria in the colon change it into short-term fatty acids that are important for normal bowel health.
  4. Dietary Fiber – It is an accurate measurement of the fiber content of foods, which is resistant to the human digestive enzymes. And includes parts of the plant food and crude fiber that cannot be digested.

The functions of Fiber
Dietary fiber binds water in the intestine in the form of a gel and ensures that the stool is bulky and its passage through the intestine is not delayed. Dietary-fibers in high fiber diet decrease absorption of bile acids and cholesterol from the bowel, by getting attached to them. Lack of fibers cause gastrointestinal disorders (constipation, appendicitis, colon cancer); degenerative disorders (prostate and breast cancer); metabolic disorders (diabetes, obesity, gallstones) and cardiovascular disorders (varicose veins, strokes and high B.P.)

Submitted on January 16, 2014