Increasing Fibre in Your Diet Just Got Tastier - Through Nutritional Bars!!
Dietary Fibre was never considered a nutrient up until a few decades ago. The upsurge of various GI diseases in the recent past has brought the attention of medical professionals to this non-nutritive, yet essential part of the human diet. Considerable efforts have been made to supplement fibre in health foods such as nutritional bars.
Dietary Fibre are undigestible part of human diet & are of two types mainly soluble & insoluble fibre. Soluble fibre is mainly found in foods such as oatmeal, apple, lentils, oranges, lemons, strawberries, blueberries; whereas insoluble fibre in foods such as whole grain cereals, brown rice, bulgar wheat (daliya), wheat/ oats bran, green leafy veggies.
Health food manufacturers such as those of nutritional bars are adding oats, whole wheat flakes, dried fruits, etc which help in increasing the overall fibre content of these bars.
Daily Dosage : 25 – 30 gms of fibre / day through diet is a healthy amount for males & females of the Indian population.
Few essential functions which fibre plays in the human body are described as follows :
- Amazing cholesterol lowering action
- Glycemic Control Achiever
- Excellent Prebiotic
- Natural Cathartic
- Weight Loss Enhancer
- Consume minimum 2-3 variety of whole fruits in a day, instead of drinking fruit juices.
- Consume 2-3 servings of vegetables in a day in the form of salads or subjis with your meals. Unstrained vegetable soups & juices are an excellent source of insoluble fibre.
- Oats, broken wheat, ragi, jowar, bajra are good high fibre alternatives for wheat items, which can be substituted in breakfast, lunch times.
- Rolled oats, whole wheat flakes, dried raisins, cranberries added in nutritional bars, are a good source of dietary fibre.
- Adding powdered oats or wheat/ oats bran in the normal wheat flour can also considerably increase the fibre content of wheat.
- Including dried fruits such as raisins, figs, apricots, dates in daily diet also helps to increase fibre intake.
- A glass of water with 2 tsps of psyllium husk can work as magic in reducing food intake for weight loss.