How on earth are you supposed to eat 30 grams of fibre every day?

[SleafordSods]

I’ve been listening to The Fibre Factor on R4.

I’m not on TikTok but according to this show, lots of TikTokers are now moving away from promoting eating high protein to now stressing how important it is to get 30g a day.

How do you do it though? Foods I thought might be high in fibre, like a banana, only have roughly 2 grams.

So if you’re getting 30 grams a day, how are you getting it?

That could be it, my meals are coming in around 1500 calories (I'm not reducing weight, just stopping myself from binge eating, which is my big problem - once I start eating I can't stop, but OMAD in the evening keeps that under control), so maybe I only need 22g?

Whispers

and cheese

Thanks for this. I was just thinking about this today! How could someone who only needs about 1400 kcal/day get the suggested 30g fibre. And shouldn't the guidance be scaled to mass or intake.

I eat about 2100 kcal/day and a lot of F+veg+beans+whole grains ... and I can't usually make 30 g fibre. Example

fruit & porridge: about 3 g fibre
4 slices wholemeal bread with non fibre sandwich fillings: 6g fibre
1 large banana : 3g
3/4 can of baked beans ->13.5 g with cheese+salsa
Total = 25-26 g.

Maybe 900 kcal/day I'm eating that's not high fibre foods... I'd have to get that down to < 500kcal/day that was low fibre to confidently get to the 30.

I think this came up on another thread because I also thought you wouldnt need 30g if you eat less but apparently you do

I think a few tweaks and you can up your fiber intake easily. Try this oat breakfast- i looked this morning and oatbran has loads more fibre than normal oats.

Maybe try coronation chickpeas in your sandwhiches instead of a no fibre filling. Or bean salad, or lentil soup?

There are loads of swaps that hopefully shouldn't affect your calorie intake too much?

AI reckons mine is 18g. Terrible

Thats around 1400 cals.

2000 kcal intake/day
30 grams fibre target
target = 1.5 g of fibre for every 100 kcal ingested.

Nuts are sometimes suggested as "high fibre" but are actually < 1.5 g of fibre/100kcal. Nuts are Not "high fibre" foods.

WM bread: just about reaches 1.5g fibre/100kcal. So that's not really "high fibre" either. Just barely medium fibre.

To allow some "fun" foods like cheese or chocolate, you really want a lot of foods that are at least 2g/fibre per kcal

Banana is about 3g fibre/100kcal so that's good.

I don’t understand why you’re measuring fibre per 100 kcal? What’s the connection/ point?

I maintain my weight on about 2100 kcal/day.
That means I need an average of 1.5 grams of fibre per 100 kcal I consume, if I wanted to achieve 30g fibre/day.

Having a target of 1.5 g fibre/100kcal is a way to make my food choices.

Someone who reckons they maintain on 1500 kcal/day would need a higher target per 100 kcal they consumed.

but fibres needs aren’t related to calorie intake.

on 2000 calories a day it’s very manageable to get 25/30g - you don’t need a hack. I get 25g on 1500 calories. It gets difficult if you under eat- 1000, 1200 calories but you’ll be deficient in many things so probably don’t care. I just don’t understand the unnecessary hack. It doesn’t make a difference to ease or effectiveness.

It's not easy. I am gluten-intolerant and can't eat oats, plus quite a few seeds irritate my stomach as well.

America recommends 25g for women and 38g for men, uk seems to have adopted a simpler more universal guideline.

I would say at 5ft2 and 8st I won’t be badly off consuming 20-25g a day as my body and consumption is much smaller than an average man who is being advised to consume 30.

It’s not random at all… the recommendation increase is in part due to a change in the way fibre is measured and the other part because people don’t eat enough.

Its part of a SACN report and you can read more here - The previous recommendations for dietary fibre were 18g/day. The new recommendation is defined using a different method of dietary fibre analysis called – the Association of Official Analytical Chemist’s (AOAC) method. If the old recommendations had used this same method of analysis, previous dietary recommendations would have been around 23-24g of dietary fibre/day.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f7cc3ed915d74e622ac2a/SACN_Carbohydrates_and_Health.pdf

Raspberries may be your saviour, 100g =7g of fibre.

No they're not, we've been through all this.

Not everyone has acid issues

What? Whats that got to do with what I said?

How about legumes? Can you manage those? I've been watching loads of reels since this discussion started and it seems a variety of fibre sources is the trick. So pulses, vegetables, nuts, even dark chocolate. There's a good list here.

Yes, legumes I can do, and I have them quite often. I should probably eat more brown rice than white too. I think the gf pasta I eat probably has more fibre than normal pasta though, actually.

I would imagine it will, if made from lentils or similar.
I try to add legumes every day. Today we had dahl made from lentils and chickpeas with added kale and paneer for tea. I've taken to putting beans in everything or pimping what I can with fibre. So porridge (I know you cant eat it) with grated apple, chia and mixed seeds, dried fruit for breakfast. Raspberries, dark chocolate and yogurt with nuts for pudding. It's early days, so still learning how it all works.

Would millet porridge work for you? Or a mix of millet and quinoa flakes?