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- Fiber is crucial for gut health, but most Americans don’t eat enough.
- Those who follow the Mediterranean Diet, packed with veggies and beans, eat twice as much fiber.
- Christina Soteriou’s tips for adding fiber to dishes include using blended beans.
Eating a diet packed with fiber is second nature to Christina Soteriou, a plant-based chef who spent most of her childhood in Cyprus.
Fiber, found in plants such as vegetables, beans, and nuts, is crucial for our digestive health. It feeds “good” bacteria in the gut microbiome, or the microbes that line the colon. A diverse gut microbiome is associated with better overall health and a lower risk of chronic diseases, including colon cancer.
In the US, where the Western diet is common, over 90% of women and 97% of men don’t eat the recommended 14 grams of fiber per 1,000 calories each day, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans state. People who follow a Mediterranean-style diet, however, eat double the amount of fiber each day, according to a 2021 literature review published in the journal Nutrients.
Soteriou, the author of “Big Veg Energy,” told Business Insider it’s easy to add fiber to meals without compromising flavor, using the whole foods that are a staple of the Mediterranean diet.
Nichola Ludlam-Raine, a dietitian and the author of “How Not to Eat Ultra-Processed,” said Soteriou’s tips are an excellent way to consume more fiber to support digestion, gut health, and energy levels.
1) Add blended beans to sauce to make it creamier
Soteriou likes to think about what she can add to a meal versus what to restrict.
One of her favorite high-fiber additions is blended beans, as they also add a creamy flavor to a dish. “Instead of somewhere you might put cream in, you can blend beans,” she told Business Insider.
She often mixes blended lima beans into pasta sauces.
“The flavors could be something like harissa and roasted red peppers, or you could just literally throw some pesto into the blender with some beans, and that makes a creamy sauce,” she said.
Another favorite is fresh herbs, spinach, half a can of beans, lemon juice, and a tablespoon of tahini.
“If you love pasta, you’re eating pasta, but also getting all of these yummy nutrients and protein and fiber,” she said.
2) Sprinkle mixed seeds on meals
Seeds are high in both fiber and healthy fats and contain plant-based protein. They’re also easy to add to any meal or snack, Soteriou said.
She buys packs of mixed seeds to help her reach her goal of eating 30 plants a week, a number experts believe helps promote gut microbiome diversity.
“If you have a seed mix that has 10 different seeds in it, that’s 10 points already,” she said.
She sprinkles them over oats, salads, and roasted vegetables.
3) Try different whole grains
Whole grains such as brown rice, quinoa, and bulgar wheat are an essential part of the Mediterranean diet, and they tend to be high in fiber.
To eat more fiber, Soteriou changes the whole grains she uses and tries new ones.
“If you think, ‘Okay, I’ve had rice, what other grain can I eat with this thing?’ There’s so many different grains,” she said. “Experiment with different grains where you can.”
You could try using pearl barely instead of Arborio rice in a risotto, for example, or millet instead of couscous, she said.
4) Top dishes with fermented foods
Dashing some fermented vegetables, such as pickles, kimchi, and sauerkraut, into a grain bowl or on top of a salad is quick and easy and will up the fiber content and flavor profile, Soteriou said.
These foods also introduce live bacteria into the gut, which research suggests boosts gut health.
Fermented foods tend to last for ages, so you don’t have to worry about them going bad like fresh vegetables, she said.
