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A rabbit hole I've been going down recently... so the current recommendation is to get at least 14 g(rams) of dietary fiber per 1000 calories, so 28 on a 2000 calorie diet. You may also see "25 g for women, 38 for men" because apparently men are supposed to be eating 2700 calories/day, which I'm not sure I've ever done. Anyway. How much do Westerners actually eat?
Average for US and UK is 12-18 grams/day. Big difference.
How much do rural peasants on a mostly plant diet get? 60-120 grams in Africa, 77 in China (different studies, obviously). https://vegfaqs.com/can-vegans-get-too-much-fiber/ Even bigger difference.
Most of our ancestors were also peasants until recently, so on average we're getting like 1/4 the fiber of our ancestors. Suddenly, metabolic syndrome makes a lot of sense.
Let's do my favorite, botecs! What's a crude model of a Western diet? 2/3 refined wheat products, at 9 (8-10) g/1000 calories, 1/3 non-fiber food (meat, dairy, veg oil). That's 12 g fiber out of 2000 calories.
What if we slip in 100 calories of produce at 60 (40-120) g/1000 calories? That's +6 g, so 18 total if we replace some of the non-fiber food. Big improvement, but still short.
200 calories of high-fiber (90) produce? 12+18 = 30 g, a lot better, but we're replacing nearly 1/3 of the non-fiber part of the diet -- though we could replace refined carbs and not lose much.
What if someone lives on sandwiches that are 50% by calories Wonderbread (8g/1000 cal) and 50% meat and cheese? That's 8 g/day for the whole diet. I almost feel constipated just typing that out.
Going back to the original model, what if we replace the carbs with whole-grain at 24 (24-28) g/1000 cal? That's 32 g fiber/day -- instantly healthy! Well, healthier. In fiber.
Incidentally, I grew up eating whole wheat bread, and found whole wheat pasta as an adult, but as an adult much of my bread has, for flavor reasons, been sourdough or the sort of 'rye' that's mostly refined wheat + bit of rye + dill and caraway (I'm pretty sure it was the dill and caraway I cared about.) In very belated retrospect, that may have been a bigger hit to my diet quality than I realized, especially when my daily produce consumption started slacking.
What about those vegetarian diets? Potatoes are 20 g/1000, so 40 g/day if you just eat potatoes. Eating entirely whole wheat or oats would be like 48 g/day. Eating half whole grain, half beans and vegetables at 60g/1000, would be 84 g/day. Knock off 20% for fat, and it's still 67 g/day.
Rice is disappointing on this front -- even brown rice is just 12 g/1000 cal, a bit short of the guideline. As for white rice, lol. I think a healthy East Asian diet consists of a *small* bowl of rice, with lots of vegetables, not meat on a big bed of rice. I've heard that saliva + white rice starts making sugars right in your mouth; maybe we should regard the rice less as a staple and more as dessert.
A limited table of fiber content in foods; the last column is fiber/calorie, so you can move the decimal point 3 spaces to get grams/1000 calories. https://www.fitnessforcoolpeople.com/nutrition/fibercalorie-ratio-and-chart/
Does all of that make any difference to me? Yes, actually; I've shifted hard in a 'Mediterranean' direction, or "flexitatrian in a pescatarian direction". Nothing's absolutely ruled out, but I'm back to whole wheat bread, and not buying non-fish animal products to take home and cook, vs. my recent norm of 'rye' bread and daily pork/steak/chicken.
(Power of proofreading: my second pass caught like 5 typos.)
Average for US and UK is 12-18 grams/day. Big difference.
How much do rural peasants on a mostly plant diet get? 60-120 grams in Africa, 77 in China (different studies, obviously). https://vegfaqs.com/can-vegans-get-too-much-fiber/ Even bigger difference.
Most of our ancestors were also peasants until recently, so on average we're getting like 1/4 the fiber of our ancestors. Suddenly, metabolic syndrome makes a lot of sense.
Let's do my favorite, botecs! What's a crude model of a Western diet? 2/3 refined wheat products, at 9 (8-10) g/1000 calories, 1/3 non-fiber food (meat, dairy, veg oil). That's 12 g fiber out of 2000 calories.
What if we slip in 100 calories of produce at 60 (40-120) g/1000 calories? That's +6 g, so 18 total if we replace some of the non-fiber food. Big improvement, but still short.
200 calories of high-fiber (90) produce? 12+18 = 30 g, a lot better, but we're replacing nearly 1/3 of the non-fiber part of the diet -- though we could replace refined carbs and not lose much.
What if someone lives on sandwiches that are 50% by calories Wonderbread (8g/1000 cal) and 50% meat and cheese? That's 8 g/day for the whole diet. I almost feel constipated just typing that out.
Going back to the original model, what if we replace the carbs with whole-grain at 24 (24-28) g/1000 cal? That's 32 g fiber/day -- instantly healthy! Well, healthier. In fiber.
Incidentally, I grew up eating whole wheat bread, and found whole wheat pasta as an adult, but as an adult much of my bread has, for flavor reasons, been sourdough or the sort of 'rye' that's mostly refined wheat + bit of rye + dill and caraway (I'm pretty sure it was the dill and caraway I cared about.) In very belated retrospect, that may have been a bigger hit to my diet quality than I realized, especially when my daily produce consumption started slacking.
What about those vegetarian diets? Potatoes are 20 g/1000, so 40 g/day if you just eat potatoes. Eating entirely whole wheat or oats would be like 48 g/day. Eating half whole grain, half beans and vegetables at 60g/1000, would be 84 g/day. Knock off 20% for fat, and it's still 67 g/day.
Rice is disappointing on this front -- even brown rice is just 12 g/1000 cal, a bit short of the guideline. As for white rice, lol. I think a healthy East Asian diet consists of a *small* bowl of rice, with lots of vegetables, not meat on a big bed of rice. I've heard that saliva + white rice starts making sugars right in your mouth; maybe we should regard the rice less as a staple and more as dessert.
A limited table of fiber content in foods; the last column is fiber/calorie, so you can move the decimal point 3 spaces to get grams/1000 calories. https://www.fitnessforcoolpeople.com/nutrition/fibercalorie-ratio-and-chart/
Does all of that make any difference to me? Yes, actually; I've shifted hard in a 'Mediterranean' direction, or "flexitatrian in a pescatarian direction". Nothing's absolutely ruled out, but I'm back to whole wheat bread, and not buying non-fish animal products to take home and cook, vs. my recent norm of 'rye' bread and daily pork/steak/chicken.
(Power of proofreading: my second pass caught like 5 typos.)
no subject
Date: 2022-08-18 20:09 (UTC)From:Damn, I'd mostly relied on brown rice for carbs, maybe I should switch to wholewheat noodles and wholewheat bread instead.
Hmmm, fish much better than poultry?
no subject
Date: 2022-08-18 20:14 (UTC)From:fish and poultry: obviously no difference in fiber. :p But in terms of heart and cancer risk, yeah fish probably better, especially than dark chicken -- which IMO is way tastier than white.
As for eggs, I saw something about them doubling the risk of prostate cancer vs. a vegan diet, due to the choline. Though I don't know the baseline rate, and it was probably a pro-vegan website. But for now I've been buying plants + seafood + the occasional cooked chicken for home; some eating out of Mexican food but less than I might have planned otherwise.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-18 23:58 (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2022-08-19 00:11 (UTC)From:Here in Mexico, the trick is finding whole wheat bread that doesn't also have 5 grams of added sugar per serving. Gotta look out for the 'Cero cero' (fat, sugar).
OTOH I found whole wheat pasta in a convenience store near me. o_O Granted a unique experience, but still.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-19 03:59 (UTC)From:I've never worried too much about details about macronutrients because the East Asian diet - mostly, rice (I prefer brown or red), and a lot of stir-fried or braised vegetables, with meat/fish mixed in small quantities essentially to add flavour, and fruit for dessert, gives more than enough fiber and everything else. Your, ahem, daily bathroom experience will let you know.
Some people prefer it, but I don't count calories to lose or maintain weight. Just adjust the diet/activity ratio as needed.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-19 04:03 (UTC)From:As for macronutrients... yeah, the "Western diet" is rather different, to our detriment. Refined carbs and lots of them, red and processed meat, light on the veggies and seafood...