How to Estimate How Much Dietary Fiber You Eat in a Day

The fiber food guidelines issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations pointed out that healthy people should have 30-50 grams (dry weight) of fiber in their daily diet. Therefore, everyone should evaluate how much dietary fiber they eat in a day, and appropriately adjust their diet based on the evaluation results. Because dietary fiber is an essential nutrient for the human body and cannot be synthesized in the body, it must be supplemented from the diet every day.

To estimate daily dietary fiber intake, three data are needed, namely, the amount of plant-derived foods consumed daily, the cellulose content and the water content. Take the current average dietary fiber intake of the urban population in my country as an example to illustrate the estimation method:

1. If calculated by per capita consumption ration of 250 grams: the fiber content of refined white flour is about 2%. Therefore, people who rely on flour as a staple food obtain about 7 grams of cellulose from the staple food every day; the cellulose content of polished rice is 0.6% to 0.8%. People who eat rice as the staple food get about 2 grams of fiber from the staple food every day. People who consume a mixture of flour and rice get 4 to 5 grams of cellulose from staple foods a day, and people who consume a mixture of flour, rice, and grains get 5 to 6 grams of cellulose from staple foods every day;

2. Based on the per capita consumption of 50 grams of plant-derived food such as soy products, it is possible to obtain nearly 1 gram of cellulose.

3. Estimated by per capita consumption of 1000 grams of fruits and vegetables, since their water content is above 80%, the resulting cellulose is about 2 grams.

Adding the main and non-staple foods, people who eat flour as a staple food consume an average of about 10 grams of fiber per day, which is only 1/3 of the minimum requirement; people who eat rice as a staple food consume an average of about 5 grams of fiber per day. It is only 1/6 of the minimum requirement; people who consume a mixture of flour and rice consume about 8-9 grams of cellulose per day, which is less than 1/3 of the minimum requirement. It can be seen that the fiber intake of most residents is obviously low. This is an important reason for overnutrition, overweight and obesity. The principle of adjusting the diet structure is to increase the intake of dietary fiber, and should be based on increasing plant-derived foods such as semolina, brown rice, black noodles, grains, and beans.

It should be noted that so far there is no unified scientific definition of dietary fiber in academia, and there is currently no unified measurement method. Therefore, the results obtained by the above calculation methods are estimated values and can only be used as reference. It is difficult to be accurate. , Consumers can adjust their dietary fiber intake based on the estimated results.