AIBU to doubt only 4 per cent of adults get enough fibre?

[Anonnewbie]

To think that the recommended 30g of fibre per day isn't that hard to achieve for most people and be confused by the stats I keep seeing recently that 96% of UK adults get less than this?

Is it 96% don't meet it EVERY day, because that seems reasonable. Or don't average over 30g, which I think is pretty bad. But I'm realising as I type I should Google that question

My real question is how much fibre did you eat today? I just put it into chat gpt by typing out my food for today and despite being horrified by today's diet (1 piece of fruit, a few veg, way too much pastry and cheese, and quite a lot of Easter egg...saved by half a tin of beans), it estimated 37g. I asked it for a breakdown of that and the calculations seemed correct within reason as I'm not going to start weighing etc.

I would have guessed I was above average due to eating plenty of veg and home cooked meals, but cant believe I would be in the top 4% of fibre eaters in the country.... What do you think?

Just put my meals for yesterday into my fitness pal and according to that I ate 65g of fibre.

Most days I eat more nuts and seeds than I did yesterday. I love sunflower and pumpkin seeds and all nuts and snack on them. I also usually have 2 ryevita for lunch but yesterday had a wholemeal pitta bread with hummus

I can well believe it. Lots of people think they eat well when they don’t <looks over at dh with judgement>.

Dh is terrible with eating well. I suspect he is the norm, or at least very average. He will say he eats healthily but in reality his diet is mostly meat, potatoes (mash or chips, no skins), an occasional pea or some cucumber on the side of a toastie. He never eats any beans, lentils, veg of any sort really. Ever. No fruit. He lives on pot noodles and crisps.

I can’t understand how he can eat like this and say “oh I eat well” if anyone asks him. It’s ridiculous.

I have very rare autoimmune issues and a strong family history of bowel cancer so I’m the opposite and constantly trying to eat veg / fibre etc etc. Dh regularly turns his nose up at stuff I eat.

I'd be really interested in what you ate if you don't mind sharing?

I'm finding the thread very interesting.

Just put my meals for yesterday into my fitness pal and according to that I ate 65g of fibre.

@mydogisthebest what did you eat?

I know you didnt mention in your diet but you focused and specified an implied less good diet involving white bread, white pasta, white carb. So I simply answered that bit.

Me! I want to do that, they are absolutely delicious! I have soups, curries, hummus, falafel, casseroles, dips...

Legumes are cheap, nutritious and easy to incorporate in all sorts of meals. Flexible and good for you - what not to like?

I don't think its helped by people low carbing

@OttersOnAPlane I don’t think
its rocket science that some of us like to eat different things everyday?

Or enjoy eating out?

One of my favourite meals is falafel and hummus with roasted chick peas and salad. There's sometimes also grains involved too. The only bad thing is that I have it with a ready made pitta and no, it's not wholemeal.

Perhaps if it was served in a wanky restaurant and presented as chick peas three ways with the chick peas scattered across the plate, held in place by a drizzle of hummus, people would go for it?

I don't doubt the 4% of adults stat. It seems to be pretty consistent over the years and from a reliable source National Diet and Nutrition Survey https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-diet-and-nutrition-survey-2019-to-2023/national-diet-and-nutrition-survey-2019-to-2023-report#nutrient-intakes

"'Cereals and cereal products’ were the main source of fibre for all age groups, contributing between 43% and 50% to average daily intakes. ‘Vegetables and vegetable products and dishes’ was the second major contributor to fibre intakes (19% to 25%). ‘Fruit’ provided 18% of fibre intakes for children aged 18 months to 3 years and 6% to 12% for the other age groups."

Haven’t rtwt, so don’t know if anyone has mentioned the effect of too much fibre?
More than the recommended amount can cause ibs, leaky gut, constipation, vitamin and mineral deficiencies among other effects.

Fibre is incredibly important and obtainable by eating porridge, baked beans, fruit, veg, nuts, lentils, wholemeal bread etc.

I can well believe that most people aren't getting enough fibre which is a shame as it can by lovely! Also it stops you getting constipated and that's really important too.

"But who wants to do that?!"

You were implying nobody in their right mind would choose to eat pulses daily.

I do eat different things every day. And I eat in restaurants at least twice a month.

Dhal, hot and sour soup, hummus, rajma, sausage and bean casserole, burritos, pasta e fagioli, beans on toast - all very different meals.

If you specifically focus on fibre that's easy.

The problem is that you also need 5 a day / 30 a week, 2 portions oily fish, low UPF, high protein, low fat and all the other dietary advice.

I am currently trying to boost vit D and iron naturally. That involves avoiding too much fibre with meals to ensure absorption. Add in kids with dietary issues due to autism and you just can't win...

Yeah I like beans (not baked beans though, not British enough I guess) but not enough to eat every day. Plus I have IBS so not really supposed to eat them at all. But they are a cheap bulker so I will eat them in stews and suchlike, IBS be damned.

You were implying nobody in their right mind would choose to eat pulses daily

Because the context was getting 30g of fibre a day and as I said pulses were the easiest way! On a thread about hitting protein targets I would say the same about eating chicken & eggs daily.

I eat all the things you mention regularly but it doesn’t mean I am consuming enough to hit that fibre target.

There are lots of foods I love that I still don’t want to eat daily. It’s fine that you enjoy that but loads don’t.

So yesterday for breakfast I had bran flakes with raisins, raspberries, a kiwi with skin on, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, almonds, chia seeds and greek yoghurt.

For lunch I had a wholemeal pitta, some hummus, cherry tomatoes and cucumber.

For dinner I had a shepherds pie made with carrots, sweetcorn, peas, mushrooms, brussels, parsnips, lentils and blackbeans and topped with mashed sweet potato.

I had a few walnuts and raisins as a snack and also a banana and an apple.

No way am I going to eat a kiwi with skin on, no matter how good it might be for me. I am sure I was told when I was little that if you ate the kiwi skin it'd cut up your mouth and throat and I cannot overcome that childhood fear.

@mydogisthebest what portion size of nuts and seeds were you eating though?

sultana bran, hummus & pitta & a whole kiwi is about 15g of fibre. A sweet potato about 4g, banana 1.5g

I had no idea you could eat the skin.

@Natsku you don’t need to eat the skin. plenty of fibre in the flesh

All bran has double the fibre of bran flakes queens! Bran flakes are pretty low at about 3/4g a portion

just to say very high fibre isn’t great, and certainly no better than 25/30g. It’s not recommended you eat 50/60g (people don’t generally eat this every day anyway, but in theory if they did)

fibre is moving your bowels. Overdosing has obvious consequences! You will have a beautiful bowel with 25g a day.

It’s not recommended you eat 50/60g (people don’t generally eat this every day anyway, but in theory if they did)

Even 200g of pumpkin seeds and almonds is only about 20g of fibre. But 1000kcal & ££££ so prohibitive for most.

but unless you serve your food in buckets, these are low quantity right? I don’t think you’ve had 56g

2 breakfasts (cereal and a yogurt bowl) and a shepherds pie with 9 different vegetables (all different flavours too, such a strange dish?) so there can’t have been quantity in them. a tablespoon of sweetcorn
etc has minimal fibre.

I don't know that it's that they're not fancy enough for people. I enjoy pulses and legumes etc too and I'm not that bothered fancy food, it's just that I also enjoy other things and don't always want to eat them every day. And also clearly not everyone does like them so in a lot of eating out situations or other people cooking for you it's not as easy to get them. Case in point, at my local (very non wanky) cafe where we went for brunch as a treat over Easter, I could have chosen baked beans on toast or porridge with berries as very fibre friendly options, I have those at home all the time but I just couldn't bring myself to choose them over a delicious toastie sourdough sandwich with avocado and roast veggies and pesto and a salad on the side. It would have been ideal had the sandwich had some hummus but sadly no. It's not that the sandwich is unhealthy, just not everything healthy and delicious (or plant based) includes beans and pulses automatically. We then went over to MIL's for late lunch where she'd made a roast vegetable tart and green veg - again lovely, healthy, could hardly complain about the lack of lentils could I? But I reckon by the end of the day I'd had very little by way of fibre (on a largely plant based diet too!). Doesn't really matter for one day but if you don't know much about it or aren't thinking I can easily see that people would eat like that every day/most days or wouldn't think to add fibre as a matter of course...