Sally Squires has this to say in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47067-2003Dec8.html" title="The Holiday Challenge: Fun With Fiber (washingtonpost.com)">today’s Lean Plate Club</a>:
“Eating more fiber is one of the best things that you can do for your health,” notes JoAnn E. Manson, chief, preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and co-author of the study. Foods rich in fiber and whole grains “increase satiety — you feel fuller — and that may lead to consuming fewer calories, which can help with weight control.”
…To help boost fiber:
- Start the day with whole-grain cereal and berries. Some cereals have up to 13 grams of fiber per cup. Add a half-cup of berries and you can get three to four more grams of fiber. Can’t stomach high-fiber cereals? Top regular cereal with a quarter- or third-cup of the high-fiber stuff to make the taste more palatable.
- Switch to whole-grain varieties of bread, crackers, pasta and rice. They have double or more the fiber found in the white bread, pasta and rice, which are stripped of fiber during processing. Rye, pumpernickel and other whole-grain breads are good choices, with about three grams per slice. Wild rice and brown rice have about three grams of fiber per cup. Whole-wheat pasta has about six grams of fiber per cup…
- Snack on popcorn, fruit or vegetables. Popcorn has a gram of fiber per one-cup portion. Get two grams from a small banana, three from a medium apple with the skin or a half-cup of cooked broccoli.
- Sip bean soup. At about 17 grams of fiber per cup, beans, lentils and legumes are also high in protein and rich in complex carbohydrates, which helps keep hunger at bay. Bean dips are another good option.