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?

The difference between the UK and France wouldn't be significant but for pretty much all European countries, the data imply that people are living the best part of 20 years at the end of their lives in an unhealthy state. That's pretty shocking.

Funnily enough you are describing me. I prioritise protein (wouldn't say i am obsessed with it 🤣) and have just checked my food logs for the last few weeks and I am averaging around 30g fibre without ever thinking about it. So it is possible

I have Herbalife OAF and add it to my shake everyday not sure how much fibre I have I just scoop it out 😂

I use branston which is probably the second most popular brand after Heinz. Looks like Heinz is 8. So I’d go for branston if you are want more fibre (which are far superior in taste in my opinion anyway!)

The recommendation is 18g, it says here in the Manual of Nutrition 2008.

Plant protein? That makes it very doable

What is the manual of nutrition and did you notice it was neatly 20 years ago? 😂

I thnk it was increased to 30g

Agree with others that it needs careful thought

But if it shuts people up about protein thats great, so boring now and I say that as someone who has to prioritise protein due to a physical requirement.

People are very prone to believe the amounts they read as well, the Heinz vs Branston thing is an example, both are likely to be developed in the same factories, the bean amount wont change significantly, so one or both are wrong.

The raspberry thing showed that as well.

I’m vegan so I find it easy as I have lots of beans, lentils, fruit, veg, nuts, seeds etc. Also I only eat wholemeal/wholegrain bread, rice, pasta etc so it soon adds up.

Yesterday I ate

Porridge, raspberries, walnuts and chia seeds
Butternut squash and chilli soup with wholemeal bread
Bean and veg chilli with wholegrain rice
Plus snacks, so easily 30g of fibre.

One of my most frequent lunches is a tin of chickpeas, handful of cherry toms (chopped), chopped cucumber, some red onion, lots of parsley and mint plus evoo, lemon, garlic. It has about 18-20g fibre depending on the brand of chickpea and decent protein as well.

You can also make lovely soup out of chopped carrot, onion cucumber, chicken stock, tin of beans and big handful of kale and chard, plus dolllop of greek yog if you want.

Obviously you need a good appetite to eat a whole tin of chickpeas or beans but I easily manage it!

I'm not great at remembering to count macros so tend to try to build meals around pulses and wholegrains (plus veg) on the basis that that will always be a decent baseline of fibre and protein.

I think its ok if you can eat in fairly large volume. If you need small calorie dense meals its quite difficult.

Seeds and nuts are quite helpful there because they're quite dense so have a lot of fibre for the size. Whereas leafy greens are not helpful because you need a huge amount of them.

https://www.ined.fr/en/everything_about_population/data/europe-developed-countries/life-expectancy/

I do think being vegetarian or vegan helps. As a vegetarian I find it easy to get to 30 a day too.

Supports my point. Almost half of the populations in both countries are overweight as well. Certainly not 'healthy'.

People in France and Italy live longer than in most other European countries.

Yes I find it a lot easier to eat high fibre than high protein. I do eat fish but only small portions. Whole meal bread, rice, berries, bananas, jacket potato, lentil and veg soup, brocolli, peas, are things I eat most days.

@Dragonscaledaisy are you saying France & Italy don’t have a longer healthy life expectancy than the UK? I’m so confused.

To the point made by the original poster - that doesn't mean the populations are healthy or long lived.

I thought being overweight when older was a slight advantage?

There are countless studies from across the world which all contradict each other, really difficult to say.

Certainly from a purely practical point, if you are very elderly and are prone to things which require yo to be in hospital you certainly dont benefit from being the right weight because successive hospital stays will render you quite underweight.

Its happened to my dad and now he is underweight and cant put the weight back on.

I'm saying the difference between the UK and France isn't significant. There's a significant difference between Italy versus both the UK and France. Your original point was that France and Italy had healthy and long lived populations which I disputed, You're now talking about healthy life years lived which is a different metric. Comparisons aside, the number of life years spent not in good health at the end of life is far too high for all three countries.

French women's life expectancy is almost 3 years more than UK women's. They're about a year's difference in male life expectancy.

@Dragonscaledaisy I think you are confusing me with someone else. I never said anything other than healthy life expectancy (I think it’s much more important than life expectancy) , my first comment is the below.

”They have quite a significant longer healthy life expectancy than the UK, I think ours has stagnated or shrunk”

I did think France was closer to Italy though.

Comparisons aside, the number of life years spent not in good health at the end of life is far too high for all three countries

Thats inevitable with modern medicine though.

@soupyspoon obviously anecdotal but all my relatives & family friends who lived into their 90s had a bit of weight. Not obese at all but a little bit over. As you say a hospital stay would cause them to lose weight so it was maybe a bit of extra protection.