What Do The Different Kinds Of Fiber Do? 30 Foods That Rank Highest

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We’ve talked before about how important fiber is:

Why You’re Probably Not Getting Enough Fiber (And How To Fix It)

And even how it’s arguably the most important dietary factor when it comes to avoiding heart disease:

What Matters Most For Your Heart? Eat More (Of This) For Lower Blood Pressure ← Spoiler: it’s fiber

And yes, that’s even when considered alongside other (also laudable) dietary interventions such as lowering intake of sodium, various kinds of saturated fat, and red meat.

So, what should we know about fiber, aside from “aim to get nearer 40g/day instead of the US average 16g/day”?

Soluble vs Insoluble

The first main way that dietary fibers can be categorized is soluble vs insoluble. Part of the difference is obvious, but bear with us, because there’s more to know about each:

  • Soluble fiber dissolves (what a surprise) in water and, which part is important, forms a gel. This slows down things going through your intestines, which is important for proper digestion and absorption of nutrients (as well as avoiding diarrhea). Yes, you heard right: getting enough of the right kind of fiber helps you avoid diarrhea.
  • Insoluble fiber does not dissolve (how shocking) in water and thus mostly passes through undigested by us (some will actually be digested by gut microbes who subsist on this, and in return for us feeding them daily, they make useful chemicals for us). This kind of fiber is also critical for healthy bowel movements, because without it, constipation can ensue.

Both kinds of fiber improve just about every metric related to blood, including improving triglycerides and improving insulin sensitivity and blood glucose levels. Thus, they help guard against various kinds of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and metabolic disease in general. Do note that because whatever’s good for your heart/blood is good for your brain (which requires a healthy heart and bloodstream to nourish it and take away waste), likely this also has a knock-on effect against cognitive decline, but we don’t have hard science for that claim so we’re going to leave that last item as a “likely”.

However, one thing’s for sure: if you want a healthy gut, heart, and brain, you need a good balance of soluble and insoluble fibers.

10 of the best for soluble fiber

FoodSoluble Fiber Type(s)Soluble Fiber (g per serving)Insoluble Fiber Type(s)Insoluble Fiber (g per serving)Total Fiber (g per serving)
Kidney beans (1 cup cooked)Pectin, Resistant Starch1.5–2Hemicellulose, Cellulose68
Lentils (1 cup cooked)Pectin, Resistant Starch1.5–2Cellulose67.5
Barley (1 cup cooked)Beta-glucan3–4Hemicellulose26
Brussels sprouts (1 cup cooked)Pectin1–1.5Cellulose, Hemicellulose23.5
Oats (1 cup cooked)Beta-glucan2–3Cellulose13
Apples (1 medium)Pectin1–2Cellulose, Hemicellulose23
Carrots (1 cup raw)Pectin1–1.5Cellulose, Hemicellulose23
Citrus fruits (orange, 1 medium)Pectin1–1.5Cellulose12.5
Flaxseeds (2 tbsp)Mucilage, Lignin1–1.5Cellulose12.5
Psyllium husk (1 tbsp)Mucilage3–4Trace amounts03–4

10 of the best for insoluble fiber

FoodSoluble Fiber Type(s)Soluble Fiber (g per serving)Insoluble Fiber Type(s)Insoluble Fiber (g per serving)Total Fiber (g per serving)
Wheat bran (1 cup)Trace amounts0Cellulose, Lignin6–86–8
Black beans (1 cup cooked)Pectin, Resistant Starch1.5Cellulose67.5
Brown rice (1 cup cooked)Trace amounts0.5Hemicellulose, Lignin2–32.5–3.5
Popcorn (3 cups popped)Trace amounts0.5Hemicellulose33.5
Broccoli (1 cup cooked)Pectin1Cellulose, Hemicellulose45
Green beans (1 cup cooked)Trace amounts0.5Cellulose, Hemicellulose33.5
Sweet potatoes (1 cup cooked)Pectin1–1.5Cellulose34.5
Whole wheat bread (1 slice)Trace amounts0.5Cellulose, Hemicellulose11.5
Pears (1 medium)Pectin1Cellulose, Hemicellulose45
Almonds (1 oz)Trace amounts0.5Cellulose, Hemicellulose22.5

10 of the best for a balance of both

FoodSoluble Fiber Type(s)Soluble Fiber (g per serving)Insoluble Fiber Type(s)Insoluble Fiber (g per serving)Total Fiber (g per serving)
Raspberries (1 cup)Pectin1Cellulose56
Edamame (1 cup cooked)Pectin1Cellulose56
Chia seeds (2 tbsp)Mucilage, Pectin2–3Lignin, Cellulose35.5
Artichokes (1 medium)Inulin1Cellulose, Hemicellulose56
Avocado (1 medium)Pectin~2Cellulose46
Black beans (1 cup cooked)Pectin, Resistant Starch1.5Cellulose67.5
Quinoa (1 cup cooked)Pectin, Saponins1Cellulose, Hemicellulose34
Spinach (1 cup cooked)Pectin0.5Cellulose, Lignin33.5
Prunes (1/2 cup)Pectin, Sorbitol2Cellulose46
Figs (3 medium)Pectin1Cellulose23

You’ll notice that the above “balance” is not equal; that’s ok; we need greater quantities of insoluble than soluble anyway, so it is as well that nature provides such.

This is the same kind of balance when we talk about “balanced hormones” (does not mean all hormones are in equal amounts; means they are in the right proportions) or “balanced microbiome” (does not mean that pathogens and friendly bacteria are in equal numbers), etc.

Some notes on the above:

About those fiber types, some of the most important soluble ones to aim for are:

  • Beta-glucan: found in oats and barley, it supports heart health.
  • Pectin: found in fruits like apples, citrus, and pears, it helps with cholesterol control.
  • Inulin: a type of prebiotic fiber found in artichokes.
  • Lignin: found in seeds and wheat bran, it has antioxidant properties.
  • Resistant starch: found in beans and lentils, it acts as a prebiotic for gut health.

See also: When Is A Fiber Not A Fiber? The Food Additive You Do Want

One fiber to rule them all

Well, not entirely (we still need the others) but there is a best all-rounder:

The Best Kind Of Fiber For Overall Health?

Enjoy!

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  • Grains: Bread Of Life, Or Cereal Killer?

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    Going Against The Grain?

    In Wednesday’s newsletter, we asked you for your health-related opinion of grains (aside from any gluten-specific concerns), and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

    • About 69% said “They are an important cornerstone of a healthy balanced diet”
    • About 22% said “They can be enjoyed in moderation, but watch out”
    • About 8% said “They are terrible health-drainers that will kill us”

    So, what does the science say?

    They are terrible health-drainers that will kill us: True or False?

    True or False depending on the manner of their consumption!

    There is a big difference between the average pizza base and a bowl of oats, for instance. Or rather, there are a lot of differences, but what’s most critical here?

    The key is: refined and ultraprocessed grains are so inferior to whole grains as to be actively negative for health in most cases for most people most of the time.

    But! It’s not because processing is ontologically evil (in reality: some processed foods are healthy, and some unprocessed foods are poisonous). although it is a very good general rule of thumb.

    So, we need to understand the “why” behind the “key” that we just gave above, and that’s mostly about the resultant glycemic index and associated metrics (glycemic load, insulin index, etc).

    In the case of refined and ultraprocessed grains, our body gains sugar faster than it can process it, and stores it wherever and however it can, like someone who has just realised that they will be entertaining a houseguest in 10 minutes and must tidy up super-rapidly by hiding things wherever they’ll fit.

    And when the body tries to do this with sugar from refined grains, the result is very bad for multiple organs (most notably the liver, but the pancreas takes quite a hit too) which in turn causes damage elsewhere in the body, not to mention that we now have urgently-produced fat stored in unfortunate places like our liver and abdominal cavity when it should have gone to subcutaneous fat stores instead.

    In contrast, whole grains come with fiber that slows down the absorption of the sugars, such that the body can deal with them in an ideal fashion, which usually means:

    • using them immediately, or
    • storing them as muscle glycogen, or
    • storing them as subcutaneous fat

    👆 that’s an oversimplification, but we only have so much room here.

    For more on this, see:

    Glycemic Index vs Glycemic Load vs Insulin Index

    And for why this matters, see:

    Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    And for fixing it, see:

    How To Unfatty A Fatty Liver

    They can be enjoyed in moderation, but watch out: True or False?

    Technically True but functionally False:

    • Technically true: “in moderation” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. One person’s “moderation” may be another person’s “abstemiousness” or “gluttony”.
    • Functionally false: while of course extreme consumption of pretty much anything is going to be bad, unless you are Cereals Georg eating 10,000 cereals each day and being a statistical outlier, the issue is not the quantity so much as the quality.

    Quality, we discussed above—and that is, as we say, paramount. As for quantity however, you might want to know a baseline for “getting enough”, so…

    They are an important cornerstone of a healthy balanced diet: True or False?

    True! This one’s quite straightforward.

    3 servings (each being 90g, or about ½ cup) of whole grains per day is associated with a 22% reduction in risk of heart disease, 5% reduction in all-cause mortality, and a lot of benefits across a lot of disease risks:

    ❝This meta-analysis provides further evidence that whole grain intake is associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and total cancer, and mortality from all causes, respiratory diseases, infectious diseases, diabetes, and all non-cardiovascular, non-cancer causes.

    These findings support dietary guidelines that recommend increased intake of whole grain to reduce the risk of chronic diseases and premature mortality.❞

    ~ Dr. Dagfinn Aune et al.

    Read in full: Whole grain consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and all cause and cause specific mortality: systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies

    We’d like to give a lot more sources for the same findings, as well as papers for all the individual claims, but frankly, there are so many that there isn’t room. Suffice it to say, this is neither controversial nor uncertain; these benefits are well-established.

    Here’s a very informative pop-science article, that also covers some of the things we discussed earlier (it shows what happens during refinement of grains) before getting on to recommendations and more citations for claims than we can fit here:

    Harvard School Of Public Health | Whole Grains

    “That’s all great, but what if I am concerned about gluten?”

    There certainly are reasons you might be, be it because of a sensitivity, allergy, or just because perhaps you’d like to know more.

    Let’s first mention: not all grains contain gluten, so it’s perfectly possible to enjoy naturally gluten-free grains (such as oats and rice) as well as gluten-free pseudocereals, which are not actually grains but do the same job in culinary and nutritional terms (such as quinoa and buckwheat, despite the latter’s name).

    Finally, if you’d like to know more about gluten’s health considerations, then check out our previous mythbusting special:

    Gluten: What’s The Truth?

    Enjoy!

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  • The Toe-Tapping Tip For Better Balance

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    Balance is critical for health especially in older age, since it’s amazing how much else can go dramatically and suddenly wrong after a fall. So, here’s an exercise to give great balance and stability:

    How to do it

    You will need:

    • Something to hold onto, such as a countertop
    • A target on the floor, such as a mark or a coin

    The steps:

    • Lift one leg up, bring your foot forward, and tap the object in front of you.
    • Then, bring that foot back to where it started.
    • Next, switch to the other leg and tap.
    • Alternate between your right and left legs, shifting back and forth.
    • Your goal is to do this for 10 repetitions on each leg without holding on.

    How it works:

    Whenever you tap, you have to lift one leg up and reach it out in front of you. Doing this requires you to stand on one leg while moving a weight (namely: your other leg), which is something many people, especially upon getting older, are hesitant to do. If you’re unable to stand on one leg, let alone move your center of gravity (per the counterbalance of the other leg) while doing so, you may end up shuffling and walking with your feet sliding across the ground—something you really want to avoid.

    For more on all of this plus a visual demonstration, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Fall Special ← this is about not falling, or, failing that, minimizing injury if you do

    Take care!

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  • Younger – by Dr. Sara Gottfried

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Does this do the things it says in the subtitle? In honestly, not really, no, but what it does do (if implemented) is modify your gene expression, slow aging, and extend healthspan. Which is all good stuff, even if it’s not the snappy SEO-oriented keywords in the subtitle.

    A lot of the book pertains to turning certain genes (e.g. SIRT1, mTOR, VDR, APOE4, etc) on or off per what is sensible in each case, noting that while genes are relatively fixed (technically they can be changed, but the science is young and we can’t do much yet), gene expression is something we can control quite a bit. And while it may be unsettling to have the loaded gun that is the APOE4 gene being held against your head, at the end of the day there are things we can do that influence whether the trigger gets pulled, and when. Same goes for other undesirable genes, and also for the desirable ones that are useless if they never actually get expressed.

    She offers (contained within the book, not as an upsell) a 7-week program that aims to set the reader up with good healthy habits to do just that and thus help keep age-related maladies at bay, and if we slip up, perhaps later in the year or so, we can always recommence the program.

    The advice is also just good health advice, even without taking gene expression into account, because there are a stack of benefits to each of the things in her protocol.

    The style is personable without being padded with fluff, accessible without dumbing down, and information-dense without being a challenging read. The formatting helps a lot also; a clear instructional layout is a lot better than a wall of text.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to tweak your genes for healthy longevity, this book can help you do just that!

    Click here to check out Younger, and enjoy the difference!

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Related Posts

  • Dealing With Hearing Loss
  • How Does Someone Die From Dementia?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Dementia is most often thought of in terms of the loss of certain cognitive faculties during the disease’s progress. So how does death occur?

    A quiet departure

    Notwithstanding it being a widely-feared disease (or set of diseases, since we’re using the umbrella term of dementia, and not the most well-known and common kind, Alzheimer’s), death from dementia is usually a peaceful one; any distressing confusions are usually in the past by this point.

    Sometimes, it is not the dementia itself that directly causes death; rather, it leaves someone much more vulnerable to infections, with pneumonia being top of the list, and UTIs also ranking highly. And while a younger healthier person might drink some cranberry juice and shrug it off, for an older person with dementia, even a UTI can be much more serious. Pneumonia, of course, is well-known for often being the final straw.

    Sometimes, it is the dementia that directly causes death; the disease causes a slow decline until the person stops eating and drinking. At this time, they will also tend to sleep more, and as mentioned, experience much less agitation and confusion than previously.

    In terms of caregiving at this late stage, the hospice worker in the video recommends to do one’s best to keep the person clean and safe from falls or infections, check common pressure sore sites for redness, changing their position if necessary and using pillows to relieve any undue pressure.

    For more on all of this, see:

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    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    When Planning Is A Matter of Life & Death: Managing Your Mortality

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • Intuitive Eating – by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    You may be given to wonder: if this is about intuitive eating, and an anti-diet approach, why a whole book?

    There’s a clue in the other part of the title: “4th Edition”.

    The reason there’s a 4th edition (and before it, a 3rd and 2nd edition) is because this book is very much full of science, and science begets more science, and the evidence just keeps on rolling in.

    While neither author is a doctor, each has a sizeable portion of the alphabet after their name (more than a lot of doctors), and this is an incredibly well-evidenced book.

    The basic premise from many studies is that restrictive dieting does not work well long-term for most people, and instead, better is to make use of our bodies’ own interoceptive feedback.

    You see, intuitive eating is not “eat randomly”. We do not call a person “intuitive” because they speak or act randomly, do we? Same with diet.

    Instead, the authors give us ten guiding principles (yes, still following the science) to allow us a consistent “finger on the pulse” of what our body has to say about what we have been eating, and what we should be eating.

    Bottom line: if you want to be a lot more in tune with your body and thus better able to nourish it the way it needs, this book is literally on the syllabus for many nutritional science classes, and will stand you in very good stead!

    Click here to check out “Intuitive Eating” on Amazon today, and give your body the attention it deserves!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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  • The Lifestyle Factors That Matter >8 Times More Than Genes

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We’ve said before that “genes predispose; they don’t predetermine”. It can be good to know one’s genes, of course, and we’ve written about this here:

    Genetic Testing: Health Benefits & Methods

    …which can include some quite contemporary risks, such as:

    Genetic Risk Factors For Long COVID

    And yet…

    Nurture Over Nature

    A very large (n=492,567) study looked into the impact of 25 lifestyle/environmental factors, of which 23 are considered modifiable, and found that lifestyle/environmental factors accounted for 17% of the variation in mortality risk, while genetic predisposition accounted for less than 2%.

    Which is good news, because it means we can improve our lot.

    But how?

    The strongest negative factors (that increased mortality the most) were:

    • Smoking
    • Not owning your home (interestingly, “live in accommodation rent-free vs own” performed just as badly as various kinds of “renting home vs own”, while “own house with mortgage, vs own outright” had only a marginal negative effect)
    • Sleeping more than 9 hours per day (performed even worse than sleeping under 7 hours per day, which also increased mortality risk, but not by as much as oversleeping)
    • Financial difficulties in the past two years
    • Homosexuality
    • Unemployment
    • Being an evening person
    • Lonely lifestyle
    • Frequent napping

    We may hypothesize that homosexuality probably makes the list because of how it makes one more likely to have other items on the list, especially unemployment, and the various poverty-related indicators that come from unemployment.

    Being an evening person, whatever its pathology, is a well-established risk factor that we’ve talked about before:

    Early Bird Or Night Owl? Genes vs Environment ← this is also, by the way, an excellent example of how “genes predispose; they don’t predetermine”, because there is a genetic factor involved, and/but we absolutely can switch it up, if we go about it correctly, and become a morning person without trying to force it.

    The strongest positive factors (that decreased mortality the most) were:

    • The inverse of all of the various above things, e.g. never having smoked, owning your own home, etc
    • Household income, specifically
    • Living with a partner
    • Having oil central heating
    • Gym use
    • Sun protection use
    • Physical activity, especially if in leisure time rather than as part of one’s work
    • Glucosamine supplements
    • Family visit frequency
    • Cereal fiber intake (i.e. whole grains)

    We may hypothesize that having oil central heating is simply a more expensive option to install than many, and therefore likely one enjoyed by homeowners more often than renters.

    We may hypothesize that glucosamine supplementation is an indication of the type of person who takes care of a specific condition (inflammation of the joints) without an existential threat; notably, multivitamin supplements don’t get the same benefit, probably because of their ubiquity.

    We may hypothesize that “family visit frequency” is highly correlated to having a support network, being social (and thus not lonely), and likely is associated with household income too.

    You can see the full list of factors and their impacts, here:

    Environmental architecture of mortality in the UKB ← that’s the UK Biobank

    You can read the paper in full, here:

    Integrating the environmental and genetic architectures of aging and mortality

    Practical takeaways

    The priorities seem to be as follows:

    Don’t smoke. Ideally you will never have smoked, but short of a time machine, you can’t change that now, so: what you can do is quit now if you haven’t already.

    See also: Which Addiction-Quitting Methods Work Best?

    Note that other factors often lumped in with such, for example daily alcohol consumption, red meat intake, processed meat intake, and salt intake, all significantly increased mortality risk, but none of them in the same league of badness as smoking.

    See also: Is Sugar The New Smoking? ← simply put: no, it is not. Don’t get us wrong; added sugar is woeful for the health, but smoking is pretty much the worst thing you can do for your health, short of intentionally (and successfully) committing suicide.

    Be financially secure, ideally owning your own home. For many (indeed, for most people in the world) this may be an “easier said than done” thing, but if you can make decisions that will improve your financial security, the mortality numbers are very clear on this matter.

    Be social, as loneliness indeed kills, in numerous ways. Loneliness means a lack of a support network, and it means a lack of social contact (thus increased risk of cognitive decline), and likely decreased ikigai, unless your life’s purpose is something inherently linked to solitude (e.g. the “meditating on top of a mountain” archetype).

    See also: What Loneliness Does To Your Brain And Body

    And to fix it: How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation

    Be active: especially in your leisure time; being active because you have to does convey benefits, but on the same level as physical activity because you want to.

    See also: No-Exercise Exercises (That Won’t Feel Like “Having To Do” Exercise)

    Use sunscreen: we’re surprised this one made the list; it’s important to avoid skin cancer of course, but we didn’t think it’d be quite such a driver of mortality risk mitigation as the numbers show it is, and we can’t think of a clear alternative explanation, as we could with some of the other “why did this make the list?” items. At worst, it could be a similar case to that of glucosamine use, and thus is a marker of a conscientious person making a regular sustained effort for their health. Either way, it seems like a good idea based on the numbers.

    See also: Do We Need Sunscreen In Winter, Really?

    Enjoy whole grains: fiber is super-important, and that mustn’t be underestimated!

    See also: What Matters Most For Your Heart? ← hint: it isn’t about salt intake or fat

    And, for that matter: The Best Kind Of Fiber For Overall Health?

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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