If fiber isn’t your friend yet, then you’re missing out on seriously good health benefits. This powerhouse nutrient can do wonders for your gut, your energy, and even your skin. Thankfully, adding fiber to your meal is easier than you think. Here are 12 tips to start with!
12. Add Chopped Veggies to Dishes
If you want to be friends with fiber, then you also need to get close to veggies! Some of the high-fiber vegetables to look out for include broccoli, carrots, and artichokes. To sneak in extra fiber to your meal, chop these veggies and toss them into soups, omelets, and pasta sauces. This is a surefire way to create a crunchy fiber infusion.
11. Give Whole Wheat Pasta a Try
While you can get fiber from traditional pasta, the amount pales in comparison with the fiber content of whole wheat pasta. For example, just one cup of cooked whole-wheat spaghetti has roughly 6 grams of fiber. So twirl your way to better digestion, all while enjoying the slightly nuttier flavor in the process!
10. Snack on Popcorn
Now, let’s have something fiber-rich for snack. Popcorn, anyone? For a crunchy, healthy snack, make sure that you choose air-popped popcorn over processed options like chips or crackers. With three cups of air-popped popcorn, you can get around 3.5 grams of fiber. To make sure your snack is truly health, go easy on adding salt or butter.
9. Sprinkle Oat Bran
Oat bran is different from oatmeal, but both come from oats. Oat bran only refers to the outer layer of the oat kernel, and is packed with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and of course, fiber. You can simply sprinkle oat bran on your yogurt or breakfast cereal to boost fiber intake. Another way is to use it as a breadcrumb substitute for baked goods.
8. Choose Brown Rice
When rice is on the menu, here’s an easy grain swap: choose brown rice over white. A cup of cooked brown rice can give you around 3.5 grams of fiber, and this is usually higher than what you can get from white rice. Brown rice is also high in magnesium, which helps control your blood sugar levels.
7. Blend Whole Fruits
When it seems impossible to get fiber into your meal, try it with your smoothie! Blending trumps juicing because the former helps retain the valuable fiber from the entire fruit. The amount of fiber depends on the ingredients of your smoothie. A blend with banana and a cup of berries would give you around 5 to 7 grams of fiber.
6. Add Veggies to Wraps or Sandwiches
Another simple yet effective way to sneak fiber into your meals is to add a few extra veggies to your sandwiches. We’re talking about the classics like tomato, cucumber, lettuce, and shredded carrots. The fiber content from each veggie may not be huge, but they do add up and contribute to your overall daily intake.
5. Snack on Unpeeled Fruits
If you eat your apples, pears, or peaches peeled, stop and consider eating them with the skin on. Why? Because the significant portion of the fruit’s fiber resides in the peel. It’s also worth nothing that commercial products made from these fruits, like apple juice or applesauce, have way less fiber content. For the ultimate grab-and-go fiber fix, choose whole fruits.
4. Add Beans to Soup or Salad
Beans and lentils provide a significant fiber boost and they happen to be incredibly easy to add to your meals. If you use the canned varieties, there aren’t many preparations needed to add them to your salad or soup. With a simple can opener, you can toss black beans, chickpeas, or kidney beans into your bowl.
3. Choose Whole Wheat Bread Over White
When it comes to lunchtime sandwiches and wraps, here’s another fiber hack to try: choose whole wheat bread over white. The former usually offers 2 grams of fiber per slice, but this could become higher if you choose whole wheat tortillas. As for the white bread, it undergoes a refining process that strips away most of its fiber-rich bran.
2. Try Whole Grain Cereals
Are you seeing the pattern here? Whole grain foods can give you the fiber boost you need, and we can say the same thing for cereals. To spot the good stuff, look for “whole wheat,” “bran,” or “oats” on top of the ingredient list. Aiming for cereals with at least 5 grams of fiber per serving is a good start in setting a fibrous tone for the rest of your day.
1. Sprinkle Seeds on Everything
If there’s one fiber hack that sounds like the easiest win, this is it. Sprinkling chia and flax seeds can add a decent amount of fiber to your meal. The best part is you can add these seeds to almost anything—salad, smoothie, yogurt, you name it. Ground flax seeds are easy to digest but chia seeds have a higher fiber content (10 grams per ounce). There’s a reason why chia pudding is so popular!