Can you get fiber from meat?
Meat has zero fiber content. All beef, chicken, pork, turkey, has no fiber. Meat, dairy products, eggs, and oils do not contain any fiber. Processed foods meaning packaged foods made with sugar or white flour generally contain very little fiber because it was removed during the manufacturing process.
What is Fiber?
Fiber and Dietary fiber (fiber you consume) can be used interchangeable. Fiber is a plant-based nutrient that cannot be found in an animal product. Fiber is sometimes called roughage or bulk. Fiber is an intact nutrient that despite being a carbohydrate, it cannot be broken down into digestible sugar molecules.
What does Fiber do?
Fiber is responsible for cleaning up the gut. There are two types of fiber – Insoluble fiber and soluble fiber- and each type has a purpose.
- Insoluble fiber such as, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, beans, and bran, acts like a broom, cleans your digestive tract. (Insoluble fiber aids with rapid gastric emptying, decrease intestinal transit time, increase fecal bulk, thus promoting digestive regularity).
- Soluble fiber behaves like a sponge by soaking up waste. This waste is cholesterol and glucose it gets soaked up by fiber and dumps it out of the body. Soluble fiber can be found in oats, beans, lentils, vegetables, and some fruits such as citrus fruits and fruits high in pectin. (It absorbs cholesterol, and decreases liver absorption and increases excretion through bile acids and fecal lipids).
Rule of thumb: The higher the fiber content, the longer you will feel full. If you are still hungry after a plantbased meal, ask yourself was it processed or whole. If your plantbased meals was processed, likely it contains less fiber.
How much Fiber should you eat daily?
Fiber is important every single day and with every meal. As a rule of thumb, it’s best to aim for 30 daily at bare minimum.
The Institute of Medicine has set a recommended daily amount (RDA) for fiber intake. Men ages 50 and younger should consume 38 grams of fiber per day, and men 51 and older should consume 30 grams. Women ages 50 and younger should consume 25 grams per day, while their older counterparts should have 21 grams. Most Americans eat 10 to 15 grams of fiber a day. Only 3% of Americans are eating meeting the recommended daily amount (RDA) for fiber.
Why is fiber good for you?
It aids your body in absorbing nutrients from food and eliminating toxins. It fills you up and helps you maintain more consistent energy levels. Fiber is needed for healthy digestion, maintaining a healthy weight, preventing cancer and type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, digestive disorders, and autoimmune disease.
What is the FIBER GAP?
Only 3% of Americans get the recommended daily 30g amount of fiber and around the same low percentage knows how much fiber to eat. This is the FIBER GAP. Most Americans get about 10-15 grams of fiber per day. You can start to fill this gap by eating 2 meals a day with mostly plants. My patients typically eat one fruit or vegetable a WEEK. However recommendations are 5 servings of vegetables and 5 servings of fruits per day (40-50 grams of fiber). What’s best? Aim for 80 grams of fiber daily.
How do we get our fiber?
How much fiber does meat have? ZERO. Fiber is an essential nutrient. It’s a necessity to poop out the digested food we consume and rid the toxins. This is made possible by sufficient fiber and water. Almost every other patient I see in the clinic or urgent care setting has constipation problems.
Do you have to count fiber?
We don’t count our fiber. We take mental snapshots of our food and are intentional about the fiber rich foods above.
Micah typically wakes up before the sun rises and makes either a smoothie or oatmeal mix. One of my breakfast items below already meets the minimum Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA).
Breakfast smoothie: berries, chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds
Oatmeal mix: steel cut oats, chia seeds, turmeric with fresh berries
The night before, I usually batch cook. I roast broccoli or cauliflower and organic tofu. I use an instapot to cook my unsalted/low sodium beans with my whole grains (brown/black rice or quinoa). Other days, I make a flavorful salad with mixed greens, tomatoes, avocado, almonds, sliced apple then add freshly squeezed lemon.
Lunch: Simple Buddah bowls or Filling 5 plus ingredient Salad (leafy greens, nuts/seeds, beans, fruit, avocado, other veggies)
After work, we tend to go for a light meal unless I’m making something for Dr. Lifestyle’s kitchen. Especially, after working out, we feel energized rather than starving. We take 15 minutes to prepare our basic veggie miso soup. This frees up more time to work on getting our place tidy or personal projects.
We keep dinner light and simple. Several times a week, we eat miso soup with 2 types of mushrooms, 2 types of greens, and organic tofu.
Which foods are high in fiber?
Fiber rich foods are typically those in the legume, berry, and leafy green family. See below how easy it is to load up on fiber.