The Importance of Gradual Fiber Intake for Optimal Gut Health.
Producer Potts 0:11
All right, Doctor, sir, I’m a thief. I steal this question right off your Instagram feed. Someone asked you on your Instagram, they said, how do we adjust to eating legumes more frequently without the gut, fiercely retaliating? I loved that question, but I’m going to add to that question and ask, also, how often and how many servings of legumes do we actually even need to eat to get the health benefit? Like if we need to be having legumes every day all the time to get all the benefits that you talk about? And is that maybe contributing to someone like having this kind of reaction if they’re just going hog wild on the legumes now because you talk about legumes all the time.
Dr. Sarah 1:03
Okay, so let’s start with the second part of your question. And then we’ll kind of back up to the actual Instagram question. So legumes are the most nutrient dense, starchy food we can eat. So double to quadruple the nutrients per calorie of whole grains. 50% To about double the nutrients per calorie of most root vegetables, there’s, there’s some overlap there, you know, if we were going to map them all, you would definitely see there’s some root vegetables that are way up there. And there’s some lagoons that are maybe less exciting, but like on average, legumes are our most nutrient dense, starchy foods. And the things that legumes have beyond being like some of our best sources of vitamins and minerals, really a fantastic source of folate, which is one of the most common nutrient shortfalls among Americans. Also generally, like really good sources of magnesium, they tend to have a good amount of zinc as well. Manganese copper, like they’re, they’re really nutrient dense, all of the B vitamins other than B 12. But the things that legumes have that are probably responsible for the extensive health benefits because they’re one of the most health promoting foods, they reduce risk of all cause mortality, which is a general indicator of health and longevity that we use in like scientific studies to determine whether or not something is good or bad for us overall. But the drops are really impressively high for people who eat legumes regularly, so they’re living longer and also living healthier. But they also lagoons are really important for reducing risk of cardiovascular disease type two diabetes, many types of cancers, like also the cause specific issues are also reduced by diets that have legumes feature in them regularly. And that those benefits are mostly attributable to nutrients, not just the vitamins and minerals, but the fiber that the games have. It just so happens to be that legumes are our most reliable, concentrated source of fiber, so even more fiber per serving than root vegetables than root grip, than whole grains, root grains, much more fiber than whole grains, berries, I like blackberries, raspberries. So the berries are like lots of seeds, kind of similar. Chia seeds have a similar amount of fiber. kumquats are really high in fiber. But like all of the legumes are high in fiber, like then you don’t have to pick and choose which one is right to get a high fiber. Good thing to eat. So legumes have tons of fiber, which is going to segue nicely into the Instagram question. And they’re also really high in polyphenols. I think when we think of polyphenols, we think of vegetables and fruit, and chocolate, chocolate and olive oil. Maybe more fun foods. But legumes are some of our most concentrated sources of polyphenols as well which have many many health benefits because they’re such great antioxidants. So legumes are just nutrient dense, fantastic nutrients we need. And they’re very, like nutrient dense. So they have a lot of nutrients for the amount of calories that they contribute to the diet. So the fiber is the challenge. So it’s not that it’s lagoon fiber like I know we’ve got limericks like the effects of legumes are so well known that everyone knows like beans, beans, the magical fruit, right like, right, right? Yeah, yes. Um But that doesn’t mean you’re doomed to those effects when you eat lagoons. But what it does mean is the challenge is if you’re if your diet normally has, let’s just say this level of fiber, whatever that is 10 grams, or 20 grams, whatever your level is, if you jump to a much higher level, and just like feed your gut bacteria all of a sudden way more fiber than they’re used to, that’s what causes excess production of gases, which can cause bloating and gas and like discomfort and potentially like that increase in bacterial activity in the guts can also cause other GI symptoms, like everybody out, like everybody out, or also nobody goes out for the next week goes out Oh, no. So it and different people, it kind of depends on the exact composition of your gut microbiome, the rest of your diet, you know, like, it depends on your hormone cycle, what extreme you’re going to have. So it is basically not a fun time, it is basically what can happen. But it’s not from the lagoons themselves so much as the sudden increase in fiber. So the way to get around that is to go slow. So with fiber, basically, like the studies that have looked at how our entire GI system adjusts to increases in fiber, say, five gram jumps per week. So if let’s say this was lovely, start that, let’s say it was 10 grams of fiber per day, which is actually way below what we need. So the daily value of fiber is 14 grams per 1000 calories. So if you eat a 2000 calorie per data day diet, that would mean 28 grams of fiber as like the target minimum 95% of Americans don’t, don’t get that much fiber, like it is.
Producer Potts 7:06
This is why when we eat beans, we have problems. Right, exactly.
Dr. Sarah 7:10
It’s exactly it. So got it, I’d say you, you’re starting at 10 grams of fiber right now. So you want to go up to 15 grams for all of next week, give your GI tract an entire week to adjust to 15 grams. Oh, by the way, that five gram jump from 10 to 15 is going to be like maybe a quarter cup of lagoons, like a lot of lagoons are in the, like 789 grams of fiber per half cup serving. Like okay, that’s see that’s the difference, right? You go like, Ooh, I should eat more beans. Let me have all the bean dip or let me know all the refried bean burritos, right?
Producer Potts 7:51
Let I’m gonna go from no being where I’m gonna take this small container of hummus and download the whole thing in one sitting with some yummy crackers or something
Dr. Sarah 8:16
to 20 for the week after for 20 grams each day for the whole week, and then go up to 25 for the whole week. So you’re just stepping up. And that might be too fast. For some people again, it really depends on your individual gut microbiome, the rest of your diet, your stress level, your activity level, how much you sleep, like all of these things are influencing the composition of our gut microbiomes. So if going up by five grams is too aggressive. You can either go up by a smaller jump, go up by two or three grams, right go by half of that. Or and potentially you do both give your body a little bit more time. It’s really your gut bacteria that takes a little bit more time to adjust to that level. So instead of going up once a week, go up once every two weeks, right? So it’s okay to like to play around and figure out what’s a good step up for you. And there’s some really interesting research showing that eating fermented foods can help our gut bacteria adjust to a high fiber diet in a more beneficial way so you’ll get better growth of good bacteria and higher dietary diversity, which is what we want. That’s one of the main benefits of a high fiber diet. So incorporating some sauerkraut or some yogurt or some kombucha those types of foods can actually help us to adjust to it.
Producer Potts 10:05
So that’s the thing is like so let’s say for someone who maybe doesn’t enjoy eating beans a lot, but they hear about you talk about clearly, you’ve just talked about why we should all be eating legumes in this video, but like, how many servings do we actually need to gain the health benefits that you’re talking about?
Dr. Sarah 10:23
Yeah, so studies that do kind of dose responses, like how much per month or per week or per day is optimal, you can really see this like line right around four servings per week where you’re like, yeah, that’s, that’s most of the benefits, not all of the benefits, we don’t really see it level off until about one and a half servings per day serving is half cup cooked for lagoons. So it translates to about an ounce, or about a fifth of a cup like the dried bean. So if you were cooking dried lentils or something, and you wanted to just make one serving, I don’t know why you would just make one serving because lunch, like leftovers, is amazing. But it would be you would measure out an ounce for about a fifth of a cup and then add that to water and it would grow to about half a cup through the cooking method. So yeah, we don’t actually see the benefits of legumes, like start to actually level off until about one and a half servings per day. But four servings per week or more is absolutely a great goal, that’s where you’re gonna get most of the benefits. So I like tips for people who don’t like lagoons, my favorite tip, my favorite way to increase lagoons is with lagoon based pasta noodles. This has become like my go to now. So either chickpea pasta or lentil pasta. There are some really affordable brands out there, so not sponsored at all, but Barilla called me because I keep promoting your products. And I will keep promoting your products even more. You sponsor me. But I love the gorilla. They have chickpea pasta, that’s really fantastic. And they also have a red lentil pasta that’s really fantastic. They’re gluten free, which is important in our household and may or may not be important in your household. But they’re like the boxes are maybe 20 cents more per box than the regular pasta so much more accessible than some of the other more niche options of lagoon based pasta. And for that, when he sends you are getting so much protein, so much fiber compared to regular pasta, and I think they’re delicious. Like I think they’re they totally hit that like comfort food button for a great, great swap and making things easy. Yeah,
Dr. Sarah 12:50
I love it. And for me, it’s also permission for that extra 20 cents that I put into the pasta. I can save money by not putting as much meat into the sauce, because I’ve got all that protein from that from the lentils. So that’s the other thing is, it’s so flexible and versatile and affordable. And I can find them at my local Kroger and my local Walmart. So also like, hopefully pretty easy to find, or you can order them from Amazon. So that’s my tip.
Producer Potts 13:31
I love these tips that you’re giving that I think they’re really helpful for people. Is there a place where someone could go to kind of get more of these like basic tips or like maybe just some basic how to recipes in the kitchen like just starting out? Like is there a place that you have, that somewhere can go for because I loved I love this, this is so great.
Dr. Sarah 13:54
I have two suggestions. So in terms of just making nutrient density really easy, that was one of the main goals of my book, which is available now from all major online booksellers and many independent bookstores and it might be at your local library. So this is very much about, like, why to care about nutrients and how getting more nutrients can improve my life. Specifically as the reader, but then also just tons of like these types of accessibility tips of how to implement a more nutrient dense diet, including, like everything we talked about, about fiber is in here, those breakdowns of how many servings of legumes is in here. So even like that type of, you know, important conversations about accessibility of increasing nutrient intake and like, why we might not want to go from zero to 100 and point six seconds when it comes to fiber. So I would definitely recommend my book and there’s 12 Mixing match style recipes in chapter 12. I just realized there were 12 recipes in chapter 12 But there’s also 15 Snack recipes. So actually there’s 27 recipes So my fun little echoing of numbers just got ruined. But what’s really cool about those recipes is they’re all pretty. Like they’re all accessible. None of them have any, like complicated cooking techniques. And they all have like, a couple of lists of like, choose one or two from this list and choose one from this list and choose two or three from this list. So you can cater to the foods you like, you can just use what you happen to have in your home already. Or you can use those lists to intentionally mix it up and like to increase dietary diversity. And they’re all like really accessible recipes. So I would say the book is a great resource. But also, I have tons of recipes on my website for free. So come over to nootropil.com There’s so many recipes there. I’m adding recipes all the time. And you can sort by different dietary needs by different types of recipe. So that is also a great place to to come and find recipes for especially with recipes for legumes to make them hopefully, a really delicious and enjoyable part of your routine. And not just a I don’t know what’s going to happen on the toilet tomorrow part of your routine.
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