The Incredible Bulk
Fiber is a nutritional scouring pad. Here are 31 ways to keep it from tasting like one.
By Elizabeth Ward, RD; Photographs by Dennis Gottlieb; Food Styling: Marie Haycox
If a rabbit doesn't eat enough high-fiber foods, its teeth may grow uncontrollably, piercing the roof of its mouth and knifing the base of its brain.
Your brain is safe, but we're not so sure about the rest of your body. Forgo the fiber and you extend an open invitation to several different cancers. You also raise your risk of diabetes and heart disease by up to 20 and 40 percent, respectively. And in the fate-worse-than-death category, you increase the odds that you'll end up fat and impotent. So while you may not die like a bunny rabbit, you won't be doing it like one, either.
Notice, we haven't even mentioned the c-word (constipation).
But even if you have the will to eat more fiber, you almost certainly don't have the way. Especially since the recommended daily dosage was recently raised from 25 to a throat-choking 38 grams. The obvious solution eating 19 slices of whole wheat bread a day isn't practical. What you need instead is subterfuge. Dietary deception. In other words, this plan for smuggling more roughage into your life.
At breakfast
Fill your juice glass with nectar instead of a watery juice from concentrate. Nectar is apricot, peach, pear, or papaya juice, mixed with fiber-rich pulp. It packs more than a gram (g) of fiber per eight-ounce glass.
Drop a whole orange into the blender to flavor your morning smoothie. (Uh, peel it first.) One orange has nearly 3 g more fiber than even the pulpiest orange juice.
Spice up your eggs. A third of a cup of chopped onion and a clove of garlic will add a gram of fiber to a couple of scrambled eggs. Or fold the eggs omelette-style over cup of cooked broccoli for two additional grams.
Heat up a bowl of oat bran instead of oatmeal; it has nearly 2 g more fiber. And add even more flavor and fiber by stirring in a quarter cup of raisins or chopped dates before nuking it.
Sprinkle toasted wheat germ over your favorite cold cereal, or stir a few spoonfuls into yogurt. Two tablespoons equals close to two extra grams of fiber.
Grab an Asian pear instead of the regular kind. They taste similar, but the Asian variety has significantly more fiber - 4 g per pear.
Buy spreadable fiber, a.k.a. almond butter, for your whole-wheat toast. Two tablespoons adds a couple of grams of fiber, along with a healthy dose of heart-protecting fats and vitamins like E.
Whip up a pack of hot-chocolate mix instead of a second cup of coffee. Most instant-cocoa mixes have up to 3 g fiber per cup.
» Health archive
Men's Health Philippines - September 2005 Issue
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A berry a day keeps the colon at play.
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