Bite Back with Abbey Sharp - Is Your “Gut Healthy” Bar Filled with “FAKE FIBER”?! (Fibermaxxing Exposed)

Starting point is 00:00:00 And if that wellness, girlie, that you follow online is eating 72 grams, you better put some cillium into your prebiotic fiber or just admit that you clearly don't care enough about your microbiome. Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abby Sharp, where I dismantle die culture rules, call it the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good. Fiber has officially entered the wellness talk chat. And as a dietitian who has spent the better part of her career bagging people to eat a freaking bean, this should be my Super Bowl. You know, for years, we have been proteinifying absolutely everything. Protein cereal, protein cookies, protein water,

Starting point is 00:00:53 which honestly still kind of feels like something we should have stopped at the border. And while I don't think that any of us are turning our backs on our darling protein, a hot new bombshell has entered the villa. Fiber. Fiber. Fiber. Fiber. Recent media coverage has declared fiber the quote, new protein, which naturally means

Starting point is 00:01:18 food and supplement companies are now clamoring to fibriify things that they literally just proteinified. And in a lot of respects, I am. I am very happy to see lentils get a publicist and Cillium Husk enter the chat. I mean, as dietitians have been screaming about fiber well before it had a social media strategy. And honestly, for good reason. Research suggests that about 90% of North Americans do not eat enough fiber, despite the benefits of a Whole Food plant-forward fiber-rich diet, being one of the most unquestionable basic nutrition truths, right up there with drink your water

Starting point is 00:02:03 and get off the couch. So then why are my wellness culture spidey senses going off? Well, because the internet did not simply decide to add a serving of beans to the weekly menu. It decided to fiber max. And I don't care what any influencer tells you. No nutrient or behavior or hack, no matter how helpful or healthy it is at its core, can remain normal or healthy once TikTok slaps a maxing suffix to it. So today's episode is not about whether or not fiber is good for you. Because spoiler alert, it is. The more interesting question to me is, what happens when a genuinely underconsumed nutrient gets absorbed into the online optimization machine. When does a helpful reminder to eat more plants turn into another rigid set of food

Starting point is 00:03:02 rules? Is fiber maxing meaningfully different than protein maxing or volume eating, clean eating, or any other of the wellness trends that started with a reasonable idea and eventually became a full-time identity? And finally, how can we increase our fiber intake without spending the rest of the day looking six months pregnant, crop dusting our co-workers, or developing a fear of white rice. I'm really excited for this one, folks. And of course, if you are really into nutrition trend deep dives like this, I would really love if you'd give bite back a follow. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening to your podcast. You can also watch it on my YouTube channel, on TikTok, on Instagram, if you're into more visual content. But yeah, I would

Starting point is 00:03:51 really, truly love your support. All right, friends, let's get into it. So to set the stage with a super-duper quick kind of food science lesson here, fiber is a type of carbohydrate found predominantly in plant foods that our human digestive enzymes cannot fully break down and absorb. Instead, it travels through the digestive tract, largely undigested, playing a key role in digestion, cholesterol, blood glucose, fullness, and our microbiome. But fiber is not just one thing. Fibers first categorized by its solubility. So we have insoluble fibers that don't dissolve in water like cellulose, which add bulk to stool to prevent constipation. And then we have soluble fibers which form a gel to help lower bad LDL cholesterol, slow blood sugar spikes, improve regularity, feed the good gut

Starting point is 00:04:47 bacteria and in some cases can also to help support satiety and weight management. With all of these critical roles, the research and support of a fiber-rich diet is basically an open-shut case. According to one massive review with over 17 million people, they found that diets that were higher in fiber were associated with a significantly lower risk of numerous chronic diseases. But despite its glowing CV, North America, consistently fail to reap its rewards. So the general recommendation for adults is to aim for about 14 grams of fiber per 1,000 calories, or on average, around 25 grams for women and 37 to 39 grams for men.

Starting point is 00:05:33 Unfortunately, the vast majority of American adults are only getting around half of that. What I'm trying to say here is that unlike most wellness trends out there, Fibre maxing is actually responding to a real legitimate nutritional gap with an evidence-based core message. Eat more plants. Include more beans. Add whole grains, berries, nuts, seeds, and vegetables to your plate. Honestly, no notes. But unfortunately, the trend is not called gently incorporate more fiber in a way that works for your unique body and lifestyle. it is called fiber maxing. And as expected, the maxing bit is where we begin to lose the plot. The problem is not fiber.

Starting point is 00:06:22 It is the scoreboard. So the suffix maxing is yet another uncomfy symptom of online optimization culture. Looks maxing, sleep maxing, protein maxing, longevity maxing, morning routine maxing. I mean, presumably someone. somewhere someone is trying to hydration max and has not left the bathroom since March. Maxing treats the body kind of like a video game character whose individual stats can be endlessly upgraded. So if 25 grams of fiber is good, then 40 must be better. And if 40 is better than 60 is elite. And if that wellness girly that you follow online is eating 72 grams, you better. You better.

Starting point is 00:07:10 put some cillium into your prebiotic fiber or just admit that you clearly don't care enough about your microbiome. This is one of the most persistent problems in wellness culture. We take a population level recommendation and then convert it into an individual competition. Protein went through the same transformation just like six months ago and my messaging was the same as it is today. Protein is essential and many people benefit from including more of it at meals or what I advocate for, which is more efficient protein sources. But social media turned, make sure you're including a source of protein in your breakfast, into every food must justify its existence by containing at least 25 grams.

Starting point is 00:07:57 Suddenly, waffles needed protein and cereal needed protein and ice cream needed protein, and a perfectly normal bowl of pasta became a nutritional failure unless the sauce contained cottage cheese, bone broth, blended up chicken bread, breast and the blood, sweat, and tears of an amateur bodybuilder. Now, the food industry is recognizing fiber as its next major opportunity. So current product development coverage is showing that fiber is now being paired with protein in breads, sodas, chips, frozen treats, and snack products, often in response to consumers seeking fullness and digestive health benefits. And I want to be clear that I'm not automatically against these products, right? Convenience matters.

Starting point is 00:08:40 when it comes to nutrition and fortification of staple ingredients and foods can be incredibly helpful for folks. But food companies love a trendy nutrient that can be isolated, added to almost anything, printed in a giant number on the front of a package, and marketed as proof that a cookie with 22 grams of sugar is suddenly now a health product. The danger is that consumers begin treating 8 grams of fiber from lentils or raspberries. same as 8 grams of fiber from a brownie made of resistant dextrin and inulin. And not just because of the excess calories or sugar in that healthified bar. Physiologically and nutritionally, the fiber in these two foods are not doing the same thing.

Starting point is 00:09:28 Let me explain. As I mentioned earlier, we often divide foods into soluble and insoluble fiber sources, which is useful as a starting point, but it still oversimplifies things quite a bit. Different fibers within those categories also differ in how viscous they are, how readily they ferment, how much water they hold, and how they interact with the rest of the food in our gut. Most plant foods contain a mixture of both soluble and insoluble fibers bound up in a physical food matrix with vitamins, minerals, polyphenols, carbohydrates, fats, protein, water, and other health-promoting compounds. In contrast, most fiber-enhanced snack foods on the market

Starting point is 00:10:12 today get those numbers up by stuffing the product with a single type of an isolated fiber, usually prebiotic fibers like inulin, chickery root, or galacto-ologosaccharide. Now, if you put aside the fact that these commonly used prebiotic fibers are wildly fermentable and have a tendency to cause aggressive gas and bloating in sensitive folks or when consumed in large amounts? There's nothing wrong with consuming these snack foods. In fact, there's plenty of documented benefits of supplementing with these types of prebiotic fibers. They've been shown to increase beneficial bifidobacterium levels in the gut. They may help to improve stool frequency to reduce constipation.

Starting point is 00:10:56 They may help to improve calcium absorption. And they may have some slight but inconsistent effects on blood sugar and, body weight management. And even though Inulin's CV is impressive, it can only perform a narrow set of jobs. It doesn't have the cholesterol lowering capacity of beta glucan. It isn't nearly as good as cillium or partially hydrolyzed guargum for constipation. It doesn't produce immune-supporting butyrate like resistant starch. It just can't do it all.

Starting point is 00:11:33 It also isn't the preferred fuel for all of our microbes. We have hundreds of different microbial species in the gut with different sets of digestive tools. Inulin is especially good at feeding certain fructin-loving bacteria, including many bifidobacteria, but other bacteria feed on resistance starch, other specialize in pectin or grain fibers, and many depend on the leftovers produced by another microbe. That means that a diet dominated by one isolated fiber repeatedly supplies the same ecological niche. So an Inuland fortified bar may support some beneficial bacteria, but eating the same isolated fiber

Starting point is 00:12:17 over and over is not the same as given your microbiome a diverse buffet. It's more like repeatedly feeding one section of the restaurant. And to be clear, this does not mean that isolated fiber or fiber supplements are fake, useless, or bad. Like, I love recommending specific fiber supplements for specific clinical goals. But a targeted fiber supplement is a tool. It is not a complete gut health strategy. In contrast, whole plant foods offer a combination of different fibers in that whole food matrix. So instead of getting eight grams of inulin in a protein bar, a half a cup of beans would provide cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin, resistant starch, and prebiotic galacto oligocococerides. And this is what isn't captured very well by the fiber maxing trend. The goal shouldn't be just to rack up as many grams of

Starting point is 00:13:12 fibers you can by pounding back a fiber brownie, a fiber gummy, a prebotic soda, a high fiber tortilla, and a greens powder before noon. The goal should be to try to maximize the diversity of fiber sources to capitalize on the wide-reaching benefits of a healthy microbiome. And this is where I think the fiber-maxing conversation becomes psychologically interesting. You know, at first glance, fiber maxing appears fundamentally different from traditional diet culture because the message is additive. It's not telling you to remove carbohydrates or eliminate sugar or fast for 18 hours or survive exclusively. on bone broth. It's simply saying add more fiber. And I wrote a whole best-selling book that

Starting point is 00:14:02 includes that base messaging because we know that this additive approach helps to prevent the scarcity mentality that makes any behavior change unsustainable. But addition can still become controlling when every meal must achieve a specific target. You can technically be adding food while increasing food obsession and functionally narrowing your diet instead of expanding it. So maybe now you feel anxious eating the white bread or white rice or a lower fiber cereal, even though these foods are not nutritionally or morally defective. Maybe you force yourself to finish an enormous salad or bowl of bran despite feeling painfully full because you have not closed the fiber ring on your tracking app.

Starting point is 00:14:52 Maybe you start believing that a day containing 22 grams instead of the 35 grams represents a failure that must be corrected tomorrow. Wellness control does not always announce itself by saying, eat less to be skinny. Sometimes it says optimize, upgrade, hit your target, do better, do not waste an eating opportunity on something that does not improve your stats. The language may have changed, but the underlying need for control may not have. So here are a few questions worth asking yourself. Am I adding fiber because I enjoy these foods and I want to support my health? Or am I chasing an arbitrary number? Can I comfortably eat a lower fiber meal without feeling that I need to compensate or that I've failed?

Starting point is 00:15:40 Am I responding to my body's feedback or am I overriding significant bloating pain or fullness because the interiors? told me more is better. Is fiber helping me eat a wider variety of foods or is it creating another hierarchy in which higher fiber foods are good and lower fiber foods are bad? And perhaps most importantly, am I using fiber to make my meals more satisfying or to make myself easier to deprive? The healthfulness of a behavior cannot be evaluated only by whether the nutrient is healthy. Intention and context is always going to be key. So how do we take the useful part of fiber maxing and leave the maximalism and the inevitable marriage testing flatulence behind? Well, here are my top dietitian tips. Number one, do not leap from a beige diet to bean influencer

Starting point is 00:16:40 overnight. Your digestive system needs time to adjust to changes in volume and fermenting. So rather than adding a fiber powder, chia seeds, lentils, brand cereal, and a pre-botic soda on the same day, which is honestly a guaranteed fartastrophe, make one small change and then hold steady until the microbes adjust. Adding around 3 to 4 grams per week supported by adequate fluids and daily movement is a conservative pace to reduce the risk of gas, bloating, constipation, or diarrhea. Number two, spread that fiber out throughout the day. Your GI tract may tolerate 30 grams divided across several meals, much better than 20 grams arriving at once in a blender bottle. So that could look like a Raspberry Chia yogurt parfait for breakfast, turkey avocado sandwich

Starting point is 00:17:33 on whole grain bread for lunch, a pair for our snack, and a quinoa salmon stir fry with a cup of broccoli at dinner. Tip number three, prioritize variety over heroics. Oats contain different fibers from lentils. Berries offer something different from barley. Nuts, seeds, whole greens, vegetables, legumes, and fruit each bring different combinations of fibers and other nutrients. You do not need to turn plant diversity into yet another obsessive challenge. Like, nobody needs to panic because they ate only 27 different plants this week instead of 30. but just try not to make one powder responsible for the entire nutritional workload of your diet.

Starting point is 00:18:18 Number four, investigate your stack. Turn over the labels on your bars, cereals, breads, drinks, candies, powders, and supplements, and look for ingredients like chicory root fiber, inulin, galacto-ologosaccharides, or fructo-olagococerides. Again, want to remind you that none of these are bad. But if you are experiencing any new gas or bloating or other GI symptoms, it does help to know whether you are consuming concentrated added fiber like six times a day so that you can adjust accordingly. And finally, remember that the recommended intake is just a general guide,

Starting point is 00:18:58 not a daily purity test. Your fiber intake is going to naturally vary day to day. One day you may eat flax, chia, berries, and lentil soup. Another day, you might have corn pop sushi and take out pizza. A healthy microbiome is created through patterns over time. So our microbes are not going to walk off the job because you ate white bread at lunch. So to wrap this up, as a dietitian, I am of course so happy that fiber is finally receiving some of the cultural attention that we have historically given to protein. I'm super glad that people are learning that carbohydrates are not inherently harmful.

Starting point is 00:19:38 and that some of our most protective foods are things like beans, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. I'm glad that we're talking openly about digestion and bowel regularity, rather than just pretending that nobody poops. And if this trend encourages someone to add berries to breakfast or try lentils in their pasta sauce or rediscover that persnips are delicious, I am here for it. But we need to stop confusing awareness with maximalism. Fibre is beneficial because it contributes to a flexible, varied, adequately nourishing diet. It does not get more beneficial when it becomes a source of pain, anxiety, food judgment, or competition.

Starting point is 00:20:22 So the healthiest version of this trend is probably not fiber maxing at all. It's fiber normalizing. It is making beans and whole grains ordinary. It is allowing fiber-fortified convenience foods to exist without pretending that they are nutritionally identical to a whole food. It's using supplements when they are useful and not because your favorite creator has a discount code. It is increasing fiber slowly enough that your digestive system doesn't send you a cease and a cyst letter, and most importantly, it is remembering that a nutrient should make your relationship with food more supportive, not more rigid.

Starting point is 00:21:01 And on that note, that is all that I have for you guys today. A heads up that we are going to be off next week to celebrate the long weekend. So I really do hope that you all have a wonderful Labor Day if you celebrate wherever you're listening. And if you enjoy this episode, I would really love if you would subscribe wherever you're watching or listening right now. And please do share this episode with a friend who recently put Sillium Husk into her prebiotic soda. Because honestly, her bowels have surely suffered enough. So, signing off with Science and SASS, I'm Abby Sharp. Thanks for listening.

Bite Back with Abbey Sharp - Is Your “Gut Healthy” Bar Filled with “FAKE FIBER”?! (Fibermaxxing Exposed)

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