Lifestyle Choices

Fibre, the part of whole grains, fruits and vegetables that is not digestible (the bran in whole wheat or the cellulose in raw fruits and vegetables) is removed in the processing of much of our food. Five years ago you would not have even heard the word fibre mentioned in connection with nutrition. It was considered unnecessary simply because, unlike vitamins and minerals, fats, proteins and carbohydrates, it is not absorbed into the system. Nutritionists dismissed it as being superfluous to human needs.

Additional bran can be a great boon to any regime for losing weight too. Limited amounts of food, or too many protein foods, can often lead to constipation, but a few spoonfuls of bran a day will solve that. It is also good for providing bulk so that you don’t feel so hungry. Try taking a couple of teaspoons or tablespoons half an hour before each meal with a glass of water. It will make you feel fuller when you sit down to eat so you are inclined to eat less.

Bran (which we have been discarding to keep as pig feed for the past century) is an excellent source of natural fibre and it is easy to buy and inexpensive to add to family dishes. But please don’t imagine that bran alone is the answer to everything.

Obviously adding bran to a refined diet by sprinkling it on cereals or putting it into white bread and bakery goods is certainly better than eating an over-refined diet on its own. It will solve most constipation problems. But it doesn’t make sense to think that you can continue to eat the same poor diet, simply add bran and get all the other health preserving benefits.

If you want to supplement your diet with bran, begin by taking one heaped teaspoon of bran three times a day. It can be washed down with juice or water, sprinkled on packaged breakfast cereals, mixed into porridge or added to soup. At first taking bran may blow up your stomach, or give you a gassy feeling but this will pass in a couple of weeks and won’t recur. After two weeks gradually increase the amount of bran until without straining, your bowels move easily once, or better yet, twice a day. The amount of bran you will need varies a lot from person to person (usually between 3 teaspoons and 3 tablespoons a day). If you get lots of fresh fruit and vegetables you will need less. If you switch to wholegrain cereal products as well and avoid sugar and foods with sugar added you will probably not need it at all.

When eating bran, it is wise also to step up the amounts of fluids you drink. Liquid plays an important part in the action of the bran itself on the bowels. Try to drink six or eight glasses of liquid a day.

Make the change gradually, adding bran to baked things and you will find the family probably won’t notice the difference.

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