Why YSK: fiber is important for optimal human health. It helps us avoid diabetes, heart disease, colon cancer, obesity, and other diseases. This is particularly important in developed countries such as mine (USA) that are suffering greatly from these diseases.
The recommended daily fiber intake is 25g for women and 38g for men in the USA, and 95% of us don’t meet this amount. This suggests an urgent need for us to increase our daily fiber intake, which can be achieved by swapping out ultra-processed foods and animal foods that are void of fiber with whole plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds.
I once had a consultation with a surgeon about hemorrhoid surgery. Her recommendation was to use fiber supplements because it’s almost impossible to get enough fiber from food alone.
(I ended up getting a bidet, and now my fiber-poor garbage diet doesn’t cause that particular problem anymore )
Psyllium husk pills are awesome
I had to start supplementing with psyllium fiber (powder) several months ago after a massive hemorrhoid attack last fall. (Surgeon gave me the identical advice.)
If I don’t get at least 40 g a day of total fiber (about 20+ of which are the powder), stools get large ‘n’ hard. It’s working, and my ass is thanking me.
What I’m having trouble squaring is I don’t think we evolved eating that much fiber every day. Pre-agriculture it would have been (depending on which part of the planet) lot’s of animal protein and whatever roots & berries you could find, right?
Micheal Greger in “how not to die” talks about this. He says that hunter gatherers would eat mostly plants and sometimes some meat. And all plant food was not process so with lot of fiber
Bingo, we were not bagging big game and eating a 16oz steak daily. Meat was and should be a luxury.
How do you consume so much psyllium? I find it difficult to get down because it turns to goo very fast
mix it quickly with cold water and chug
Exactly. I use a blender (stirring never worked) with a squirt of water flavoring. The key part is the immediate chugging!
I’m up to 70g of natural fiber a day! I’m plant-based though so it’s easy for me when most of my foods are whole plant foods.
From an American diet maybe. But that’s because our processed foods and meat fetish are really unhealthy.