Fill your plate with whole, plant based foods to give your body the fiber it needs to lead healthy lifestyle.
Whole Food Plant Based Lifestyle is intimidating or even boring for you if you have been a meat eater all your life. And I feel that the way people eat is a very personal thing. We have diverse culture and traditions. Our food choices are mostly influenced based on what we have grown up eating throughout our childhood and adolescence, right? So if there is just about one thing that you can start including in your diet today, what could it be? As a Whole Food Plant Based Lifestyle Expert, my recommendation is FIBER.
Small changes will not bore out your meals. It’s good to make tiny shifts rather than turn the wheel at once out of desperation and end up giving all half way. When you eat a lot of meat, chicken etc., you end up going pretty low on your fiber intake. Meat has 0 fibers. Ideally, 40 grams of fiber is what we should have in our diet daily.
Seems a lot right? While most of us get only 10 to 15 grams of fiber a day. So we can at least aim to get half of the recommended amount. So bring in some side salad with lots of greens and vegetables that will at least enrich your plate with a good amount of fiber. There are two kinds of fibers namely soluble and insoluble fibers.
I like to remember fibers using daily life representation, soluble fibers are like paper towels and insoluble fibers are like water hose. As self-explanatory as it sounds, one soaks up the cholesterol in your digestive tract, the other washes away the toxins and cleans your digestive tract. Soluble fiber slows down how quickly foods are digested, meaning most people feel full longer after fiber-rich meals. Insoluble fiber physically fills up space in the stomach and intestines, furthering the sensation of being full.
Having a clean gut or as we call the digestive tract is so beneficial for us. Multiple researches have shown that our gut is the residing place for more than 3 million bacterias.
Our gut health is the road to longevity, straight head. Ask me why? Well, it’s because a fiber rich lifestyle will reduce inflammations in the body which will prevent many chronic diseases that crop up inside our body due to a weak immune system. Our immune system which is tightly linked with our gut health needs to be nurtured well. So fuelling our body with more fiber rich diet is where the secret to a healthy long life lies. Added bonus, fiber also leads to sustainable weight loss.
My latest read “The Gut Health MD”, Will Bulsiewiczis is such an amazing book that explains so well the connection between the gut health and longevity. A must read if you are someone like me and likes to dig deeper into nutrition.
We all strive to have a balanced diet and one most important component to include on your plate is fiber. There are many ways to include fiber in your diet. We all are aware fiber is present in most fruits and vegetables. Also, there are most whole grains, unprocessed plant based foods that is rich in fiber. Whole grains like brown rice, buckwheat, oats, barley, millet, rye, whole wheat can be substituted for processed white flour.
Did you know 90 grams which is about 3 ounces of whole grains a day can reduce risk of bowel cancer by almost 20%? All you have to do is simply swap your breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner to whole foods options wherever possible. More than 300 varieties of beans and lentils exist and are the cheapest and most easily absorbed plant fiber so use them amply.
6 Simple ways to increase more fiber in your daily diet
- Consuming whole fruits and vegetables rather than juices.
- Adding beans and lentils to your salad.
- Eating unsalted nuts, seeds, or dried fruits as snacks, or sprinkling them over cereals, salads, or yogurt.
- Picking brown rice above the white variety.
- Consuming fruits and vegetables with their skins or peels intact when possible.(organic)
- Making dips or spreads out of chickpeas, beans, peas, lentils, and other pulses.
Adding 2 servings of greens a day into your diet is very useful. Greens such as spinach, collard greens, mustard greens, chards, turnip greens are all full of fiber. Sauté them, eat them raw, or blend them into a smoothie, pick your favorite way.
Step up your game by enjoying a “meatless Monday” once a week. Or add some of the ideas of swaps I mentioned above to add to your everyday eating routine. This will ensure a positive step towards restoring your gut health and increasing your lifespan.
To summarize, fiber helps us feel fuller on fewer calories and rids our system of excess toxins and hormones. Without adequate fiber, hormones and other chemicals are continuously reabsorbed back into the bloodstream, staying in the body longer than they should and may cause many health issues. Beans, peas, and other legumes increase satiety more than animal-based protein sources, according to research published online in Food & Nutrition Research. Thus, Eating from a plate that is rich in colors and diverse is what a balanced diet looks like.