{"id":486722,"date":"2026-05-15T22:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T22:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/486722\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T22:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T22:24:16","slug":"hugh-fearnley-whittingstall-the-cheap-everyday-veg-packed-with-fibre-that-we-take-for-granted-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/486722\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall: The cheap, everyday veg packed with fibre that ‘we take for granted’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u2018fibremaxxing\u2019 trend \u2013 increasing fibre content in your diet \u2013 has been gaining traction for a while, and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is here for it.<\/p>\n

The TV chef and campaigner says: \u201cIf you look at people talking about fibre online, and by the way I\u2019m very happy that they are, there is a lot of focus on nuts and seeds \u2013 particularly chia seeds because they\u2019re so high in fibre.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut one of the reasons they get such a high score and such a lot of attention is, per gram, they\u2019ve got a lot of fibre because they\u2019re dry ingredients. Whereas vegetables have anything between 60 and 80% water.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take the water out [of veg] that fibre also really, really high.\u201d<\/p>\n

If eating a lot of dried nuts, seeds and chia seeds, you need to add or drink a lot of water, adds the 61-year-old. So while the movement towards eating more nuts and seeds is beneficial, he thinks many high-fibre vegetables are being forgotten about.<\/p>\n

\"High<\/p>\n

(Emma Lee\/PA)<\/p>\n

Plus, vegetables have the added benefit of phytonutrients, micronutrients, vitamins and other things to help feed your gut bacteria.<\/p>\n

So does he think we all underestimate how much fibre we need?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it, I know it,\u201d says Fearnley-Whittingstall, who set up River Cottage at Park Farm 20 years ago this year. \u201cAbout 6% of us are getting 30 grams a day, over 90% of the population. This is central to the crisis in dietary health.\u201d<\/p>\n

While eating plenty of wholegrains, nuts and seeds is certainly important, it\u2019s the everyday, simple veg, probably featuring regularly in your weekly shop, that the TV chef reckons are the \u2018fibre heroes\u2019.<\/p>\n

In his new book, High Fibre Heroes, the chef focusses entirely on 12 vegetables \u2013 peas, carrots, broccoli, spinach, cabbage and kale, tomatoes, mushrooms, beans, cauliflower, lentils, leek and sweetcorn \u2013 and how to make each the star of a dish in a tasty way.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the veg we \u201calmost take for granted\u201d, he notes \u2013 \u201cEverybody knows what they are but we don\u2019t give them the hero status they deserve.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re overlooked because they\u2019re hiding in plain sight. I wanted to bring them out of the bottom of the fridge and make them a superstar.\u201d<\/p>\n

These new recipes are designed to be \u201clow stress, easy midweek meals, which either come together in one pan on the hob or come together in a big tray in the oven\u201d.<\/p>\n

Peas, for example, are probably in every freezer. \u201cI love growing them in my garden, says Fearnley-Whittingstall, \u201cbut like most, I eat a lot of frozen peas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe [warm] bashed peas [dip], which is probably one of the simplest recipes in the book, is incredibly delicious and the pea and noodle coconut soup is such an easy, lovely thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

While carrots are in most people\u2019s fridges and, along with peas, Fearnley-Whittingstall says \u201cthey really are the most obvious of vegetable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an issue that kids aren\u2019t really introduced to fresh vegetables and don\u2019t know what they look like. But everyone knows what peas and carrots look like!\u201d<\/p>\n

But rarely is the orange veg seen as the star of the show. Enter Fearnley-Whittingstall and his carrot and cashew curry or his carrot lasagne.<\/p>\n

Incredibly inexpensive, and packed with goodness beyond fibre \u2013 like beta-carotene and antioxidants \u2013 75% of us are said to eat carrots on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

You can even make carrots \u201cactually rather elegant\u201d, he says. One recipe is based on an idea from Heston Blumenthal and involves braising carrots with oranges and tomato, \u201cso they\u2019re very tender with a really rich, tangy sauce and a few olives, to give it a bit of an umami hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leeks are \u201cabsolutely\u201d underrated, he says. Usually just getting \u201cchopped up and thrown in\u201d to something like a soup or the base of a sauce.<\/p>\n

\"Hugh<\/p>\n

(Emma Lee\/PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I really like the texture of them.\u201d And the new book gives ideas for using them in ways you might not have considered before \u2013 think leek and fennel bruschetta or a leek and chickpea curry.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, buying frozen spinach, he says, is \u201cincredibly useful\u201d. The leafy green can be grown year-round in the UK and, of course, Fearnley-Whittingstall grows a lot of it himself, but also says: \u201cI love having a bit of quick, easy-win spinach.\u201d Use it in a roasted saag aloo dish, or a spinach and lentil gratin bake.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething you can chuck spinach into is a really nice, big soupy, saucy type of dish. I call them \u2018stoups’\u201d \u2013 somewhere between a stew and a soup.\u201d Think, spicy lentil, squash and greens \u2018stoup\u2019.<\/p>\n

The key way to fight the lack of fibre problem is to cook from scratch, he reckons.<\/p>\n

\"Hugh's<\/p>\n

Hugh\u2019s tomato dhal with greens (emma lee\/PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing I definitely can\u2019t solve, is how to help people eat really healthy if they don\u2019t cook at all. We need to raise a generation who are broadly able to put a healthy meal together from scratch, if we\u2019re not going to go on having this massive problem of diet-related disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

If young people have some inexpensive, healthy recipes up their sleeve, the chef says that gives \u201cincredible resilience in a world that we know isn\u2019t easy for kids when they leave school.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they can cook a few meals that gives them the chance to look after themselves and stay well, which I think is priceless whatever else the world throws at them.\u201d<\/p>\n

But fibre intake is important at every age.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never too late to start improving your diet,\u201d he says. \u201cThe older they get, the harder it is to get people to change their ways, it\u2019s really hard to get adults to change their ways, unless they\u2019ve made the decision that they\u2019re open to doing things a little bit differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"High<\/p>\n

(Bloomsbury\/PA)<\/p>\n

High Fibre Heroes by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is published in hardback by Bloomsbury Publishing, priced \u00a326. Photography by Emma Lee. Available now.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u2018fibremaxxing\u2019 trend \u2013 increasing fibre content in your diet \u2013 has been gaining traction for a while,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[277],"tags":[565,18,212505,212503,135,212502,19,17,508,212504],"class_list":{"0":"post-486722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-chia-seeds","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-emma-lee","11":"tag-fearnley-whittingstall","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-hugh-fearnley-whittingstall","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-nutrition","17":"tag-peas-and-carrots"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116580940071772635","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486722","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=486722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}