Men and women have slightly different requirements when it comes to fibre intake, Wylie says.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor females, about 25g is the minimum that we want to have per day, and for men, it\u2019s about 30g, so a little bit more. For children, about 14g is the starting point.\u201d<\/p>\n
You can start introducing fibre to children\u2019s diets from the time they start solids.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn pregnancy, it\u2019s still around the same – 25 to 30g, and for elderly [people], about 20 to 30g.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where to get fibre<\/p>\n
Any plant-based food will have some fibre, as long as it hasn\u2019t been overly processed, Wylie says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think about biting into an apple, that peel is a fibre layer, and when you bite into it, that\u2019s roughage – that\u2019s the piece we can\u2019t break down and digest. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we chew an apple, we release the juice and the energy and all of those sorts of things. The fibre never actually gets absorbed, but we still eat it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Naturally fibrous foods include fruits and vegetables, oats, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, which can be incorporated into each meal of the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cFibre-rich foods at breakfast that might be common or thoughtful to add in would be spinach or tomato if you\u2019re having eggs, or spinach in a smoothie,\u201d Wylie suggests.<\/p>\n
Adding fruit, nuts and seeds to porridge can help boost its fibre content. Photo \/ 123rf<\/p>\n
\u201cFruit is a really easy one; berries in a smoothie, banana, oats. If you\u2019re having muesli or porridge, seeds like chia seeds and hemp seeds and pumpkin seeds, nuts, peanut butter.\u201d<\/p>\n
The way you prepare or process plant foods matters when it comes to their fibre content.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we think about a smoothie, you\u2019re going to have all of those fruit skins in there, and nothing leaves the smoothie blender. But if you have a juicer, what you\u2019re stripping away is the fibre, so you\u2019re losing all of that. That\u2019s why smoothies often will keep you feeling fuller for longer – they\u2019ve got that little bit more fibre, and are super helpful for the gut.\u201d<\/p>\n
To boost your fibre intake at lunch or dinner, Wylie suggests adding some salad vegetables, vegetable sticks or a piece of fruit to your meal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re pretty good at having veggies at dinner – stir-fries, salads, roasted. It doesn\u2019t just have to be boiled. Adding nuts and seeds to main meals can help as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Too much fibre – or not enough<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we are not having regular bowel movements, that\u2019s a very good sign that something might be up with our fibre intake,\u201d Wylie says.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re not having a bowel movement at least once a day, it could mean you\u2019re having too much or too little fibre.<\/p>\n
Too much fibre can result in bloating, gut issues or digestive tract blocking long-term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a point where too much fibre just means that we\u2019re going to fill up on not enough nutrient-rich foods, essentially,\u201d Wylie says.<\/p>\n
\u201cFibre typically comes from plant foods… if we are leaning to more of those sorts of foods, it might mean that there isn\u2019t enough room in the diet for protein or fats.\u201d<\/p>\n
To overdo it, you\u2019d have to be eating too many vegetables and other fibre-rich foods and not enough other food groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as you\u2019re having anywhere from one to four serves of veggies in each meal, that\u2019s amazing – a serve being half a cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd as long as you\u2019re drinking enough water during the day, that should be plenty to help keep things moving.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt still feeds a part of our body – it feeds our microbes and our large intestines,\u201d she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[277],"tags":[27024,829,27032,11408,18,27034,3117,6452,27030,7712,135,8776,19,2761,27033,17,1355,27035,27026,27029,27022,27023,9221,508,27025,4535,27028,27027,1213,835,27031,4532,2924,21003],"class_list":{"0":"post-34739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-according","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-daily","11":"tag-day","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-extreme","14":"tag-fall","15":"tag-fibre","16":"tag-fibremaxxing","17":"tag-get","18":"tag-health","19":"tag-how","20":"tag-ie","21":"tag-in","22":"tag-intake","23":"tag-ireland","24":"tag-it","25":"tag-levels","26":"tag-many","27":"tag-might","28":"tag-much","29":"tag-need","30":"tag-nutrient","31":"tag-nutrition","32":"tag-nutritionist","33":"tag-really","34":"tag-short","35":"tag-tend","36":"tag-to","37":"tag-trending","38":"tag-upping","39":"tag-which","40":"tag-you","41":"tag-your"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}