INGREDIENTS:
What does that ingredient on your label actually do in your body, and why is TikTok so mad about it?
On Ingredients, we pick one nutrient or ingredient at a time and unpack it from every angle: biochemistry, physiology, public health, and the social media discourse that shapes how we feel about food.
Hosted by Susana, a registered dietitian, and MJ, a public health person, this podcast is where evidence meets everyday eating, and nutrition trends get a much-needed reality check.
Find Susana here:
TikTok and Instagram: susana.ritchey.rd
Bluesky Social: susanaritcheyrd.bsky.social
An Everything is Public Health Production
Website: https://www.everythingispublichealth.com/
INGREDIENTS:
Fiber
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For the first time, we discuss a somewhat positive social media diet trend.
Find Susana here:
TikTok and Instagram: susana.ritchey.rd
Bluesky Social: susanaritcheyrd.bsky.social
Music Credit:
Pixabay: TVARI - Tokyo Cafe
An Everything is Public Health production.
Welcome back to Ingredients to Podcast. I'm MJ.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Susanna.
SPEAKER_01The topic of the day is in my social media. It's all over the place.
SPEAKER_00Yes, mine as well. I'd say we're super on trend.
SPEAKER_01At least for fiber. Yeah. So we're talking about fiber today.
SPEAKER_00Talking about fiber, which for once is a trend that I can get behind.
SPEAKER_01Like I don't hate it.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01There's always going to be some unpleasant effects of trendification, but I'm excited for you to tell me about the social media side of this because fiber is of all the topics we've covered the least offensive.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And I think it's going to stay that way. I don't think I'm going to like break your heart in the ways that I have in other episodes.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that's good to know.
SPEAKER_00There's an element of it, but you know.
SPEAKER_01Really? Okay. I'm excited to hear about what that crazy social media element is. But for once, we're doing a positive episode, which is nice.
SPEAKER_00I thought we could start with a little pop quiz.
SPEAKER_01Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Okay. What is a source of fiber that is considered both a vegetable and a whole grain?
SPEAKER_01I am going to be super nerdy and pedantic.
SPEAKER_00You're gonna start talking about culinary vegetables.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, vegetable is a culinary term. Like there is no botanical vegetable. It's a purely culinary term. So when you say vegetables, do you mean like culinary vegetables or any plant?
SPEAKER_00You know, because I know that vegetables, like, even as we speak about this example, I cannot tell you the answer to that question. You'll have to tell me at the end. Can you think of one possibility?
SPEAKER_01I mean, whole grains, there's only so many, right? There's rice is a grain, right? Yeah, rice is a grain. Rice, corn, popcorn specifically is a grain. I want to say faro, oats, what's another grain? Wheat. I'm running out of grain so quickly.
SPEAKER_00It took you a while to get to wheat.
SPEAKER_01Well, most people don't eat wheat. Most people eat flour. True. There should be more grains than this.
SPEAKER_00It was one of them was correct.
SPEAKER_01Is it corn?
SPEAKER_00It's corn.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. There's corn, the yellow stuff, which is most people consider a vegetable, and then there's popcorn, the hard stuff, the kernel, which is the grain.
SPEAKER_00Well, but also like if you're thinking of like a corn tortilla, it's made from like ground corn, like masa.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. Yeah. Okay, corn. We actually love corn.
SPEAKER_00We do. We love corn.
SPEAKER_01They have a bad rep for other reasons, but corn is great.
SPEAKER_00And we love popcorn in a fiber episode. We love popcorn. Okay, number two. What happens to fiber when fruit is blended in a smoothie or juice? Does it stay there?
SPEAKER_01A smoothie, yes, because a smoothie doesn't remove anything. It's just chopped up and fiber is not visible. Like I think a lot of people, they think of fiber, they think of celery and banana, and you see the visible strand, but that's not what fiber is. That's just a structure of a banana or celery. So in a smoothie, I know you don't lose them because you you're supposed to eat the whole smoothie. I don't know about juice though. Because juice is just you're squeezing instead of like chopping up and eating it.
SPEAKER_00The quick answer to this, and we'll chat a little bit more, is exactly what you said. Yes, a smoothie contains fiber, whereas juice, we are sort of straining it out.
SPEAKER_01So smoothie is good for you.
SPEAKER_00Yes, we love a smoothie. Three, what component of fiber scares people on the carnivore diet? I will take multiple answers.
SPEAKER_01Well, here's the thing about people on the carnivore diet. They are so fragile that I could think of many things that would scare them. Honestly, the little strands on banana that probably scares them. What component of fiber scares people on a carnivore diet? I don't know. They're probably obsessed with like calories. So the whole notion that people can't absorb fiber probably pisses them off.
SPEAKER_00Okay. You're getting kind of like adjacent to the point there.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00It is about absorption. They're afraid of anti-nutrients, which are they're the types of like food compounds that we really shouldn't be discussing unless we're like in a biochem, not biochem class. I don't know. Like, why are we doing this on a podcast? Like, we just shouldn't be talking about phytates or oxalates or lectins on a podcast. It's stupid, but those are the things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. One of the red flags for, for lack of a better term, the wellness grifters is that when they mention a compound that you have to dig through biochem textbooks to find, you're too far gone. Like, nutrition should not be this hard.
SPEAKER_00Right. It should not be so complicated that we're bringing up these things. But alas, here we are. Yeah. When you said bananas, I immediately thought of there are like so many videos of carnivore bros like freaking out about oats.
SPEAKER_02Why?
SPEAKER_00There's one where I think it's like Dave Asprey like goes off on a tangent about how it's peasant food and it's full of anti-nutrients.
SPEAKER_01Oh Mike. They're so fragile. It's like a little bit can scare them.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Four. Which is fiber considered? A prebiotic or probiotic?
SPEAKER_01Oh man, I used to know the answer to this. What's the difference again? A probiotic feeds the bacteria.
SPEAKER_00You got it switched.
SPEAKER_01Oh, the prebiotic feeds the bacteria. A probiotic is bacteria. There we go.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Fiber feeds the bacteria. So I'm gonna say prebiotic. You're correct. Yay! My bachelor's degree at work.
SPEAKER_00Good job. What are the two major categories of fiber?
SPEAKER_01I'm assuming this is soluble and insoluble.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Go to school, kids. It's important.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think you pretty much got all of them, maybe like half a point for number three with the carnivore diet component, which is the hardest.
SPEAKER_01I'm scared what you're gonna tell me.
SPEAKER_00All right. We will answer those questions throughout the episode.
SPEAKER_01And elaborate on them, right?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Many dietitians have hoped that fiber would sort of nudge protein out of the way in terms of trendiness. And we're getting there. It's nothing like against protein, but Americans already get enough protein overall.
SPEAKER_01Arguably too much.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we get plenty most of the time. Sometimes, like the timing I could nitpick, but anyways, when it comes to fiber, the American Society of Nutrition estimates only 9% of women meet their fiber needs and only 5% of men.
SPEAKER_01I am shocked that the percentage for women is only a little bit more than men. Like women, shouldn't they be the more responsible gender? I would think women would be 25% of women get their fiber.
SPEAKER_00The stereotype is that we're always out to dinner ordering salads worried about weight.
SPEAKER_01So Oh no, I gotta check my bias.
SPEAKER_00Oh, cancelled. Absolutely canceled. Oh no. Okay, so current recommendations for fiber are about 14 grams per 1,000 calories. So just given the difference in calorie intake between genders typically, this averages to about 25 grams a day for women and 38 grams a day for men.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that is a big difference.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, huge difference between because of the calorie difference. And then recommendations for older adults over 50. I feel like there are gonna be a lot of 50-year-olds who would be angry about being categorized as an older adult because that feels kind of young. But um it's they're typically a little bit lower just because calorie needs start to dip.
SPEAKER_01So it is based on calorie needs. So one point I I would like to point out here is that because it's based on calories, I think people should be slightly less worried about the gender aspect of it. Like you should think about it from a calorie perspective, rather than like, oh yeah, men is 38, women is 25.
SPEAKER_02Like for sure.
SPEAKER_01I think a lot of people, especially in American diet culture, they see a number and they're like, oh no, that means 24 is not enough, where it's a curve, people. Like, you know, relax.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, I feel like my husband and I probably eat like the same amount of calories some days.
SPEAKER_01So think of it as a calorie thing rather than a gender thing. I think that's important.
SPEAKER_00Right. All right. So I guess we should talk about just sort of the basics of like what fiber is.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_00So fiber is a carbohydrate, but unlike starches and sugar, it's largely undigested. And there are two main categories of fiber that you noted earlier, which include soluble fiber and insoluble fiber. I feel like it's good to pause on the point that dietary fiber is a type of carbohydrate because many people hate carbs.
SPEAKER_01But they love celery.
SPEAKER_00Right, they're afraid of carbs and they forget that like a lot of really important nutritious foods are carbohydrates.
SPEAKER_01Good to point out.
SPEAKER_00Soluble fiber is a type of fiber that dissolves in water and forms a gel. So, for example, beta glucan is a type of fiber found in several foods, though notoriously like oats and barley.
SPEAKER_01Love oats.
SPEAKER_00The beta glucan combines with water and forms a gel in the intestines and it sort of traps these like bile acids that are really rich in cholesterol. So normally that cholesterol would just be absorbed. But when we've got that beta glucan, it gets stuck in the gel and then it's excreted instead. So if you've ever heard that oats are heart healthy, then this is an explanation for why it can help us reduce the amount of cholesterol that we are able to reabsorb.
SPEAKER_01That's great. Going back to our is it our fat episode where we talk about cholesterol? But yeah, like heart disease is the number one cause of mortality in this country. So anything that promotes the lowering of cholesterol, like soluble fiber, is good.
SPEAKER_00Right. And it's something that you can add instead of like cut out from your diet.
SPEAKER_01I know.
SPEAKER_00We love that.
SPEAKER_01We love oats. Okay, next.
SPEAKER_00So insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water and it passes through the digestive system mostly intact. So it's notoriously helpful for adding bulk to stool. But getting fiber from a variety of sources helps us ensure that we get different types of fiber, which can be beneficial in different ways.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. Variety is a spice of life as well as nutrition.
SPEAKER_00So fiber tends to come from plants. It can also come from fungi. And tragically, I hate to tell you this, but it it can also come from insects.
SPEAKER_01Hey, they're the food of the future, or so they say.
SPEAKER_00They probably are. Yeah, they have like a type of fiber called chitin, which is you don't have to talk about it.
SPEAKER_01We can move on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so in most people's diets, fiber is typically going to be found in plant-based foods like whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, and fruits and vegetables.
SPEAKER_01We love a plant forward diet for many reasons, and fiber being one of them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Foods that are closer to their natural form tend to be higher in fiber than more refined versions. So if you think about it, sugar is plant-based, but you wouldn't eat sugar for fiber because it's been refined from sugarcane or sugar beets.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sugar is pure sugar at that point. There's nothing else but sugar.
SPEAKER_00Right. We have refined it. Uh the processing of grains makes refined flour, and that involves kind of removing the fibrous portions like the husk and the germ and leaving behind the starchier portions.
SPEAKER_01That makes sense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So like the whole version would be like a wheat berry, which would contain four to five grams of fiber per half cup cooked, whereas refined flour has very minimal fiber left.
SPEAKER_01Question for you Is there much difference? I imagine there's not much difference, but is there much difference between white flour and like the so-called unbleached or the whole flour?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, actually, I don't know white versus whole wheat flour off the top of my head. I know the difference between white rice and brown rice is about a gram of fiber per serving. So in the case of rice, you can have the one you want and then add fiber in a different way. Like that's what I remembered.
SPEAKER_01Like post-editing MJ will add this in later, but I remember that there's actually not that much difference between, like, for example, white rice and brown rice. The difference is probably minimal, is my guess, because they're still refined. They're not whole wheat. Hello, post-editing MJ here. Turns out I am completely wrong on this. Whole wheat flour has significantly more fibers per gram than all-purpose white flour, sometimes more than triple the amount. So, yeah, whole wheat flour, more fiber.
SPEAKER_00And then we talked earlier a little bit about juice. Apples contain plenty of fiber, like four grams per medium apple, but apple juice really doesn't contain much fiber. And it's because we have sort of strained it out.
SPEAKER_01Juice is really just like the liquid when you squeeze.
SPEAKER_00Wait, why does it sound like you are high right now? You're having like a profound moment about profound shower thought? Like that's what it sounds like.
SPEAKER_01It does sound like a shower thought, but it's true. Like it's just the water that you squeeze out of the sponge. Like, there's very little sponge in that water when you squeeze it. But if you blend up a sponge in a blender, you're still eating the sponge. This is a terrible analogy.
SPEAKER_00Well, I like that you went with the sponge so that it's kind of a shower thought in two ways.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Oh man.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, the refining process means we're removing some like raw material or fiber. And not all forms of processing are going to remove fiber. So if we are straining it or removing like pulp from fruit solids, then the fiber is gone. But if we're blending it, we don't have the same problem. We're just changing the texture, not removing the fiber.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And another thing that was devastating when I first learned uh pulp and orange juice, minimal difference compared to normal orange juice. I was so sad.
SPEAKER_00You know, I actually didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01You would think it's like, oh, there's still bits of orange in here, but there's so little bits that it actually doesn't make that much difference.
SPEAKER_00When you get the kind with extra pulp, it's like a lot. You would think sometimes it's very textured.
SPEAKER_01You would think there's fiber in there, but there's not that much. I think it's like a fraction of a gram or something. It's like really sad.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, you know, small things add up. Um, if you like pulp.
SPEAKER_01So tiny.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I found out. Speaking of tiny, maybe I should save this for later. I don't know. I found out coffee has a small amount of fiber. Okay, now we're just But like, no, like a gram. Like a gram of fiber per 8 to 12 ounce or something.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Yeah, I mean, it's not nothing.
SPEAKER_00I'm shocked, honestly. I didn't expect it.
SPEAKER_01We're trying to find fiber in every bit of our diet.
SPEAKER_00So, yes, smoothies contain fiber, which is why they may be more health promoting than juice for the average person with very typical nutrient needs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you can kind of tell because when you're drinking a smoothie, like the fruit is still there. You can taste like the whole fruit there. Whereas juice is very much just liquid.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you might even get the little berry seeds, which is Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Those are fun when you get them stuck in your teeth.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Okay, fiber, all overall good. We love fiber. Plant-based diet, great. Love oats, love our smoothies. Why are we talking about this? And this is where you're gonna tell me something bad.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Oh no. Well, we'll start with some. I think we can say some good things too. The good news is that parts of the internet are really hyping fiber up. There is a trend called fiber maxing, which encourages people to consume more fiber. And then there are some dark corners of the internet, the carnivores.
SPEAKER_01All right, tell me the negative stuff first.
SPEAKER_00So obviously, whenever we trendify something, there are unintended consequences. And so, as mentioned, like the good news is that fiber maxing hypes people up, but there are certainly a few, a few issues. One is that people might ramp up their fiber intake too quickly and have unintended GI side effects. It takes our bodies time to adapt to fiber. So a pretty significant change all at once can lead to pretty severe discomfort, diarrhea, constipation, bloating, gas, cramping, all the fun stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, fiber is very good for the gut. And if you take in a lot of it and you're not used to it, your gut is sort of like, wow, and supercharged all of a sudden.
SPEAKER_00It has a lot of things to handle that it's not prepared to handle. And um, I think sometimes this happens intentionally. They intend to increase their fiber, but they don't realize how it's going to impact their GI system. But it can also happen sort of unintentionally because we have all of these fiber fortified products that people don't realize have so much fiber in them.
SPEAKER_01My favorite story is when someone snacked on a bag of prunes. Oh boy. And prunes are notoriously high in fiber, and you can kind of just pop them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, they're still.
SPEAKER_01Like if you're like, well, I need a healthy snack. So then you eat a bag of Trader Joe's prunes, and uh uh hold on, let me do the calculations. I have a bag right here. Trader Joe's prunes, 11 containers per serving. Get your calculators out. It is three grams of fiber. So if you eat the entire bag, it is 33 grams of fiber in one setting.
SPEAKER_00And it's all like the same type of fiber, so it's just that's just a lot. I mean, I don't know if this could happen with prunes, but people certainly get like intestinal blockages and like probably not from 33 grams.
SPEAKER_01No, but if you are used to zero grams, yeah, then this would definitely cause some problems.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would like to talk to like a a surgeon to know like the craziest blockage they've seen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I don't know if you want to hear those stories. Maybe not. I feel like by the time surgery needs to be involved is really bad.
SPEAKER_00One that I've noticed is like, I don't know if you've had much Olipop.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I love Olipop. No, no, no, no, no. What are you gonna tell me?
SPEAKER_00Nothing bad, nothing bad. I love Olipop too, right? Super fun. But it has nine grams of fiber per can. That is a lot. And some people like I don't know if you've met people who drink like diet soda instead of water.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yes, if they replace it suddenly, right?
SPEAKER_00That is I would limit yourself to one a day. Like, yeah, that's a lot. So people accidentally having like 27 grams of fiber from Olipop, that's not a fun time.
SPEAKER_01It's not a fun time. Yeah. Okay, I'm glad they're good, right? Yeah, I mean Okay, I do drink them.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I like Olipop, I like Poppy.
SPEAKER_01We're doing too much ad work for them. We're not sponsored. We just like drinking Olipop.
SPEAKER_00Not sponsored. Yeah, I had the Trader Joe's version yesterday. It was the same-ish.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm not a fan of the Trader Joe's one. Again, we're doing too many non-sponsored promotions.
SPEAKER_00Tangent. So there's all kinds of different products with added fiber. So, like if you combine a few, you can get a lot of fiber. Some of it's like a good thing. Like they have those um smart, sweet gummies. That's good. But if you overdo it, that's just not fun.
SPEAKER_01And I would like to point out, you and I recently did an episode on my podcast, probably called this for everyone, about ultra-processed food. And all of these things that we have listed are ultra-processed food. Like Olipop is an ultra-processed food, those gummies, fiber gummies are ultra-processed food. And people like Michael Polling would be freaking out. It's like, oh my god, you're eating chemicals and whatever. But like we mentioned in that episode, and I'll mention again here, it's like these are good. Like Americans generally are not eating enough fibers. And for a lot of people, asking them to suddenly switch to like a high plant diet overnight is like very difficult for them. So these options, even though they're in candy form and they're in like soda forms, I think overall they're good to have these options for people who are slowly transitioning away from their typical American diet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it reminds me a little bit of our protein episode where we talked about the fortified protein. Like, obviously, I want people to have protein in their natural forms.
SPEAKER_01Sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I can't tell you how many times I recommend some kind of protein supplement for any variety of medical conditions or life circumstances. It's good to have tools, and these kind of represent fun tools.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, fun tools, right? Like if you demonize processed food, you just have a lot of stuff that's good that you just can't access.
SPEAKER_00I do think that that is one potential bad thing about trendification, is I do think some people hear, like, okay, I'm supposed to be getting 25 grams of protein, 38 gram, not protein, fiber, 38 grams of fiber, and they're like, they start buying these fortified foods in order to meet those needs, instead of maybe you can start either way, but like we do want to prioritize food.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. I mean, like with everything, there's like a healthy approach and the unhealthy approach, and perhaps we can talk more about this later. But the healthy approach would be hey, like I love drinking sugary drinks, and I know sugary drinks are very bad for me. So let's do some healthy swaps so that I could stop drinking a bunch of like Mexican Coke or whatever with a real cane sugar.
SPEAKER_00Right. If you're swapping Coke for Olipop, that's a win. If you're swapping broccoli for Olipop, maybe not.
SPEAKER_01That's not good. Yeah. The unhealthier approach, like you said, would be people try to gamify the system. Like, oh wait, if I drink four olipop, I could still keep eating my normal, really bad diet. Right. And that's just not how the way you're supposed to do this.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So supplementation of fiber is absolutely not inherently bad. And it's great that we have those options, but using those three olipops does not provide the same diversity of fibers or micronutrients that a variety of plant-based foods do. So when it comes to supplements, we also have to be a little bit wary of the, and I should clarify, Olipop is not considered a supplement. Smart sweets aren't considered supplements. Now I'm moving on to like true supplements.
SPEAKER_01Oh, fiber supplements.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, fiber supplements. We have to be a little bit wary of concerns about like poor regulation, potential for contamination, and then the possibility of having like more or less nutrients labeled.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, supplements are notoriously less regulated than food.
SPEAKER_00Yes. I mean, people can absolutely benefit from fiber supplements, but just like once we always any supplement, we have to think about those things.
SPEAKER_01I definitely trust food more than I trust supplements in this country. So yeah, if you're taking fiber supplements, uh make sure you do your research and it's coming from a reputable source, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yes, for sure. And then another thing to consider is just corporations love the opportunity to market from a new angle. So now we're fiber maxing. And so just like we've seen protein everything, we'll see fiber everything. And that's not inherently bad, but yeah, just be careful with the advertisers. Yeah. So with a few of those negative things, fiber is incredibly important for our health. So it can help with blood sugar management, digestion, as we mentioned. Heart health, weight management, even cancer prevention, and then gut health, which is related to even more health outcomes. So, in terms of gut health, fiber, as we mentioned before, can act as prebiotics. And as you said, prebiotics act as food for probiotics. So those are basically beneficial bacteria in the colon are gonna feed on and ferment prebiotic fiber. And this process can create these short chain fatty acids called butyrate, which can act as sort of a fuel source for the cells in your colon. And they're it's associated with a lot of different health benefits. Yeah. So prebiotic fiber helps support a diverse microbiome, which seems to be important for many aspects of our health, even just beyond digestion.
SPEAKER_01It's a newish field, but we're seeing some really exciting and interesting research about how that affects a lot of the rest of our body.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's a good, good point. When people talk really confidently about the microbiome, you can know that they're full of bullshit because we don't know things really confidently about the microbiome yet.
SPEAKER_01Very early stages right now. So always be careful when people are making big claims about what their gut microbiome can and can't do.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And you know, as briefly mentioned before, we just could not discuss the online zeitgeist without discussing the increasingly prevalent contrarian take that everything good for you is bad for you and everything bad for you is good for you, right?
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00So there must be a group of influencers convincing people that fiber is bad for you.
SPEAKER_01Okay. All right. So who are these people?
SPEAKER_00Well, we discussed a little bit earlier. They're our carnivore friends.
SPEAKER_01Boo.
SPEAKER_00And they love talking about anti-nutrients, which are compounds and foods that make it difficult to absorb certain nutrients. Some examples include oxalates, lectins, goitrogens, tannins, phytates, and phytoestrogens.
SPEAKER_01I have to ask, like, surely these things are not that much of a concern that we actually need to worry about them.
SPEAKER_00That is a great conclusion for the majority of people, yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then they're not specifically fiber, but they're they're found in plant foods, so that when people try to avoid them, they miss out on, of course, the accompanying vitamins, minerals, and fiber. So the claim is that they lead to a wide array of symptoms and disease states, different ones for each different category.
SPEAKER_01So they're worried that these things would stop them from absorbing actual quote unquote actual nutrients and should be avoided. That's their claim.
SPEAKER_00Right. Or in some case, they are worried about like oxalate buildup. You'll hear people talking about oxalate dumping a lot, which already sounds fake. So yeah, and we don't need to get into the weeds about the mechanisms and concerns surrounding each anti-nutrient. Instead, we can sort of look at the solid consensus of scientific data to date that indicates that eating more plant-based foods in their whole-ish forms is health promoting. We know eating fruits and vegetables is good for you. We know eating beans is good for you.
SPEAKER_01The traces of these things must be so minuscule compared to like the actual vitamins and fiber that you're taking in that we really shouldn't be worried about whatever oxalates are.
SPEAKER_00Right. And truly, if you zoom in on digestion, absorption, and metabolism, you will find thousands of different mechanisms that can sort of increase digestion, absorption, or metabolism. There are decreased enzyme functions of, you know, all kinds of enzymes. There's competition of nutrients, interaction with the microbiome. Like there's so many reasons we may not be absorbing something the same way as the person next to us. And if we worried about every single interaction, there would be no food.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Digestion is tens of thousands of chemical reactions simultaneously.
SPEAKER_00So to worry about like one step is insane without evidence that there's a problem.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I would suggest that they should take a biochem class, but knowing them that they're not going to take a biochem class.
SPEAKER_00Or they like took it and then weaponized it in a weird way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's also possible. Biochem talks about all these reactions, and then very quickly you know that even like the simplest, like the most simple step, just glycolysis is like what? Is it 10 or 12 steps just glycolysis, let alone these other compounds that we're not even talking about?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it gets incredibly complicated. And actually, if you like Google just like visual of human metabolism, like when they have all of the cycles together, it's pretty crazy. I think that's helps people understand the complexity, sort of on the same lines of like when we zoom in on the things that make us absorb or not absorb or not. It reminded me of another social media zeitgeist moment. Did you happen to hear about banana gate?
SPEAKER_01First of all, too many gates on social media. Okay, we have abused that term to no end, and now everything can be a gate. And I kind of resent it, but is it about a scandal with a banana? I can't even imagine what that is.
SPEAKER_00It could be called banana blueberry gate.
SPEAKER_01Two fruits instead of one.
SPEAKER_00Uh, it was a big deal, maybe like recently, two or three weeks ago.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay, very recent.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was like within the past month, there was a video circulating of Mel Robbins talking to Rhonda Patrick, who is a PhD like nutrition and exercise influencer. I don't know what her PhD is in, but it's in like maybe exercise physiology or something. She's been heavily critiqued in the past by kind of the evidence-based community. And so Rhonda Patrick recommends not combining blueberries and bananas together and smoothies.
SPEAKER_02Oh my.
SPEAKER_00And of course, Mel Robbins is like, oh my God, really? I never knew that. She says not to combine them because the bananas have an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase that can reduce the absorption of some antioxidants. And just between the two of these women, they have a massive reach. I mean, people, they're very influential. So it went far.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, to my chagrin.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so all hell sort of broke loose on the internet. And I think like every single science and nutrition communicator had to release like a damage control video. Telling people that they can continue to have bananas in their smoothies. Because when we hyper focus on these small nutrient interactions, we lose sight of like all the other mechanisms, the benefits, the interactions occurring at the same time. So it's nonsensical.
SPEAKER_01I have three things to say.
SPEAKER_00I'd love to hear them.
SPEAKER_01Number one, not a fan of Mel Robbins. I think, is it hypocritical for me to say this? But my opinion is that there are a lot of what I call slocasters, where all they do is just vomit words and invite people to vomit words on their platform with no critical thought. Mel Robbins is a slocaster, in my opinion. I'm not a fan of her.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I haven't actually listened to her podcast. I've just known a little bit because and she writes books too, right?
SPEAKER_01Okay. Fucking like it's so easy to write books, Susanna. You should know this.
SPEAKER_00Well, yes, I think the one thing I remember is she like created a protein shot last year or something, two years ago.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's a lot of signs for slobcasters, and one of them is like these wellness supplements products. Yeah. Um, so not a fan of Mel Robbins. Uh, second thing I want to say, not all PhDs are created equal. Yes. Every single MD class or PhD class, there is someone that the rest of them are like, why are you here?
SPEAKER_00And usually they'll get a position in the health and human services.
SPEAKER_01So Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want to get too deep into this, but just know that not all MDs and not all PhDs are created equal. You really need to have to judge them on one, what their thesis was written in if they're a PhD, and two, what they are continuing to say in real time. So maybe Rhonda Patrick's, maybe her PhD is legit, but the fact that she's saying these things now, in my opinion, invalidate whatever credibility that she has built up with her PhD.
SPEAKER_00Right. And I think the upsetting thing is she is corrected by the evidence-based community frequently and she does not correct her mistakes.
SPEAKER_01That's how you know she doesn't have any ethics.
SPEAKER_00There's an unwillingness to go back and say, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry I misspoke. And that's how you can tell that someone is not interested in the best quality science.
SPEAKER_01If they are credible, they would own up their mistakes. And you see this with Slopcaster too. So a lot of slopcaster, they will pretend like what their statement was last week didn't exist. They'll just continue on. Oh, for sure. Third thing I want to say this is why education is so important. If you take any college-level chemistry class, like if you have to do like a chemistry lab of any form, or even like a microbiology lab of any form, you would know that chemistry is so finicky. Any contaminants in your beaker or any sort of other like tiny amounts of whatever this in this instrument, like that's why they have to autoclave everything after they use it. That's why they have to like wash everything very thoroughly with like solvents and whatever. A banana and a blueberry, like the number of compounds in a banana and a blueberry you put it in a blender.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's just so many different variables aside from that enzyme and whatever antioxidant it acts upon. And also, just as far as education goes, it's not just knowing that like chemistry is complicated, but it's humility to know that like these statements are taken out of context. Like, and that's usually where I go with a lot of things. Like, I'm just like, that sounds like maybe someone's being traumatic.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like maybe you don't know everything. Anyway, those are my thoughts. I hate this.
SPEAKER_00So instead, we need to zoom out and consider when all of these different mechanisms are taken together, what health effects do we see? And the answer is that we tend to see very positive effects when plant foods are increased. And the majority of Americans are simply not eating enough of these foods, and we don't need to discourage them. Like, if their hypothesis was correct that these foods were causing problems, then like most Americans would probably be like healthier than they are because they're not even eating these plant compounds.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you were thinking, huh?
SPEAKER_00So whether it be the lectins in beans or polyphenol oxidase in bananas, large-scale fear is just unnecessary and often kind of a tactic for influencers to increase engagement and sales. So for most individuals, having a balanced berry diet is significantly more important than nitpicking the potential nutrient interactions, which I think is the conclusion you had like one sentence into this.
SPEAKER_01You know, fiber is good and generally we're not eating enough. And if there's any way for you to increase your fiber in a holistic and in balanced way, do it. Swap out Diet Coke with Olipop. Why not? You know, slowly get there.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, so that's pretty much the online uh fiberscape right now, condensed.
SPEAKER_01So I do have a question for you, registered dietitian.
SPEAKER_00Yes, of course.
SPEAKER_01I thought about this because when I first got into fiber is the wrong, because I didn't get into it, it's just like, oh yeah, I should be eating more fiber. But when I think about fiber, because a lot of people are, again, like you said, fiber maxing. I am an East Asian. The East Asian diet is notoriously low on beans. And beans are sort of like the fiber king right now with a lot of these fiber maxing videos. So a thought came to me is like, if you're from a culture like East Asia, for example, Taiwanese, um, Japan, I want to say, and South Korea also, like in that region where beans and oats and uh what's another one? Uh what are those round little discs called um red lentils? Like lentils. If those are not in your culinary culture, you know, Mexican has a lot of beans, India has a lot of beans, but if you're from a culture where that's not the norm.
SPEAKER_00What about like soybeans or tofu?
SPEAKER_01Does tofu have fiber?
SPEAKER_00It does.
SPEAKER_01Oh, great. Then there's that.
SPEAKER_00So my answer, so you're saying if your cultural diet doesn't have that much fiber, how would you add it in, sort of?
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00So one thing to remember is there are a lot of categories of fiber. So like beans is one, and you don't have to necessarily eat beans. There are other fruits and vegetables, which no, I think about the Japanese diet, they have a lot of vegetables for sure.
SPEAKER_02They do.
SPEAKER_00Most like traditional cultures do include some like fiber sources, though they can vary. Some are more like roots. And um, historically, like there would have been locations where plant-based foods were more sparse, creating these sort of traditional diets where maybe they leaned more into meat or like fish. The one I think about is the kind of traditional Inuit diets where they mainly consumed like fish and like marine mammals and some meat.
SPEAKER_01Any of the Arctic regions, really.
SPEAKER_00Right. So that said they maybe would have like eaten some like occasional berries or something. But yeah, it would have been a very low fiber diet in a contemporary setting with like globalization and trade. Most cultures do incorporate sources of fiber, and the key is sort of identifying the ones that are culturally relevant and desirable. So I like to focus on addition. It's not ideal to like encourage people to overhaul their diets and like replace it with like that's one problem when you hear about people talking about how great the Mediterranean diet is. It's like, great, we have evidence that the Mediterranean diet is healthful, but like not everyone is from that region. Not everyone wants to eat that way. That's not appropriate to just overhaul someone's diet and replace it with a different dietary pattern. So I'll usually have patients kind of collaborate with me to identify potential fiber sources. So I I just think last week I saw a patient who was eating eggs for breakfast. And I was very tempted to recommend adding like some berries to boost fiber, but I asked them what plant-based foods they wanted to incorporate, if there was anything they liked. And they asked me if cactus had fiber. And that's not something I would have come up with on my own. I've never consumed cactus. So yeah, we looked into it together. We found that it was a good source of fiber. And so we collaboratively set a goal for her to add cactus to her eggs. Yay! Yeah. So in this situation, I didn't tell her to like exclude foods, and then I sort of let her identify the ones that were palatable and familiar to her. On sort of, I guess there's different types of culture, but like when we consider more modern like subcultures of individuals who just haven't been exposed to many sources of fiber due to like food apartheid access and like educational barriers, that's also kind of another like subset. And this is probably the hardest because when people aren't exposed to fruits, vegetables, beans, seeds, nuts as children, they often don't want to consume them later in life. It's really hard to learn to like foods, also. So this is one of the most common problems I run into, I feel like, in children and adults. And I think just kind of focusing on small wins and like very accessible, pragmatic sources of nutrition, even if it's not as varied as we want, just collaborating to find realistic solutions is really important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, what a great answer. I definitely was so caught up on beans. I'm just like, no, there's no beans in East Asian culture. But obviously, you're supposed to zoom out and be like, you don't have to eat beans. There are other things with fibers, you know.
SPEAKER_00You can eat them if you like them, but like otherwise look for something else.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, look for something within your your dietary culture. Like you can reach her diet goals without beans or oats. Right. Yeah, and another thing you brought up the modern subcultures, and I didn't even think about this, but yeah, definitely. Like, I would argue the 60s to 90s American subculture arguably has even fewer fiber than East Asian diets.
SPEAKER_00Probably.
SPEAKER_01Because East Asian diets is a lot of like fruits and vegetables, but 60s and 90s was the era of TV dinners and cans and chef boy RD and hamburgers and stuff. So you're right.
SPEAKER_00Canned peas might be like the predominant source of fiber.
SPEAKER_01So or canned corn or whatever. So that's probably a much harder barrier to overcome. The American subculture diet.
SPEAKER_00Oh, for sure. And I think just because foods with fiber tend to be like more finicky to prepare. I mean, obviously, you can grab an apple, you can grab a banana, you can grab a handful of nuts, but like a lot of foods to make them taste really good, they require preparation. And individuals with less resources have more time constraints, they might have less education on preparing those foods, they might have less access, and it leads to people who don't consume many fresh plant-based foods and don't learn to like them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I think this is a good segue to talk about the public health aspect of things. Like how do we get more people to eat more fiber from a public health perspective?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01But before we jump into that, talking about health, we sort of covered this already. But in the zeitgeist right now, why is fiber a public health concern? There's two reasons. One is the alarming rise of colon cancer for people under 40.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a great point that those two things are very connected. It's like, yeah.
SPEAKER_01There are many risk factors for colon cancer. Age is obviously the biggest one. This isn't surprising, as this is the case with nose cancer, and that's why the rising rates for people under 40 is concerning, because typically you see that trend for people who are on the older side of things. But there are a lot of things like personal history, family history, genetics, any form of inflammatory bowel disease is a big risk factor, lack of exercise, smoking, drinking. But what does fiber have to do with it? Well, they found a correlation between fiber and rates of colon cancer. So current consensus is a high fiber diet is associated with a lower risk of colon cancer, not in a magical way. I want to make that very clear. It's just high fiber, it regulates your valve movement, it helps with removing waste from your system, it helps with the gut microbiome. So overall, it is a positive thing for your GI system to be on a high fiber diet. And in general, it's just a healthier diet.
SPEAKER_00And I feel like people do take those associations and run with them and think like, oh, this person got colon cancer and they're only 30. They must have a low fiber diet. Like people jump to conclusions, and it's like it's one of many things.
SPEAKER_01It's just a risk factor. It's associated, but it is not magic. So always have to keep that in mind. And I'll come back to this a little bit later. So one other risk factor is uh how much fiber is in your diet, but I also want to caution against the tendency for social media to go to extremes when it comes to diets. Yes, fiber is good for you, and yes, in general, Americans are not having enough fiber, but no, fiber maxing is kind of pointless. Our body is not a video game stats where you can just keep adding more. This is something we've seen in all of our previous episodes where there's a tendency for people to be like, this is good for me. I should eat 10 times of this. Right. And it's like, no, your body max out after a certain level.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I actually remember like in college, I always had a stomachache, like always, all the time. And it was sort of that peak of like my crunchiness where like every grain I consumed was a whole grain. Like everything I had was fibrous. I was probably consuming so much fiber. And like one day I remember being like, I need to like incorporate just like refined flour or something. This is becoming a problem.
SPEAKER_01You're eating plants.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I was a vegetarian, so like I wasn't getting meat, which also helps sort of offset some of the fiber. And like, yes, some people can tolerate very large quantities of fiber, but not, you know, like if you find your stomach is not adapting or your intestines are not adapting to this new load of fiber, like you don't always have to increase.
SPEAKER_01Balance is key.
SPEAKER_00Right. I mean, that's the other thing. You have to meet other nutrient needs, not just one thing.
SPEAKER_01I would argue if you fiber max at the expense of other things, you're actually doing more harm than good. And related to what we mentioned earlier, right? We talked about how fiber is good for the gut, and fiber also lowers cholesterol. It lowers cholesterol, like you said, by absorbing the cholesterol in food and also bio acid and excreting them so that our body has to produce more bio acid that it can't reabsorb and therefore uses up cholesterol in the process because bioacid is made from cholesterol. And the short fatty acid chains, as you mentioned, also helps inhibit cholesterol production. So those are the mechanisms for how fiber lowers cholesterol. And I would just like to emphasize again that it is non-magic. It is not a video game where you're like, oh, if I eat a bucket of fried chicken, but I have four olips, they cancel each other out. It's like, no, they don't. You still ate a bucket of fried chicken, like the olipop's not gonna do anything.
SPEAKER_00And then it can't, like, genetics, like some people will still need to be on a statin. Like, you can't just say, like, I'm going to eat the most fiber so that my cholesterol is zero.
SPEAKER_01It's not how it works. It's all within the mechanism of the GI system. Like, the fiber is not going into your body and soaking up cholesterol like a vacuum cleaner, and then you're peeing it out. Like, it's not magic. People hear fiber can lower cholesterol, and what they're picturing in their mind is tiny bits of fiber going around in your body and sucking up cholesterol, which is not how that works.
SPEAKER_00It's a nice little image, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it's not how it works. It's all in the gut and it doesn't cancel each other out. From a public health perspective, we would love for people to have more fiber, and we would love for people to replace things in their diet with more fiber. So, how do you promote it? Well, I'm glad social media, at least my section of social media, is on top of this and they're telling people to eat their vegetables and beans, which is good. For once, social media is coming through with something positive, which is very rare. But also, from a food policy perspective, it would be nice if we can form some nutritional guidelines that's more grounded in science. Would be nice.
SPEAKER_00Would be nice.
SPEAKER_01It would be nice if we could shift some subsidies away from meat and towards vegetables that are not corn, even though corn is great.
SPEAKER_00Right. Vegetables that aren't going to feed the meat.
SPEAKER_01It would be nice if we can have some agricultural. Policy that encourages the production of these fiber or you know healthier food than rather just monoculture corn. But you mentioned this earlier like there's a lot of structural issues with fiber consumption. And one of the biggest predictor is too strong, but one of the biggest reasons why people don't eat enough vegetable is because they are not exposed to that as a kid. They don't have that relationship with that category of food when they were growing up. So another public health intervention could be school lunches.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01A lot of kids eat school lunches. So if the school lunches is healthy and balanced, you're exposing kids, at least for one meal five days of the week, you're exposing them to vegetables and they can get used to it. But also education, right? You want to provide kids with the education and provide parents with the resources to educate their kids.
SPEAKER_00Like SnapEd, which is now gone.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right. Uh, but don't worry, you can watch the real food show. That was my video quickly click on RFK Jr.'s real food show.
SPEAKER_01God, what an insane man. But anyway, yeah, there are many public health policy solutions to encourage people to eat more fiber. And I would definitely focus more on the long game than the short game. I think any sort of policy solution that is like pure messaging of like, you should eat this, you should eat this, you should eat this. I think that's generally not effective because people don't eat whatever the food pyramid is showing us. You gotta play the long game.
SPEAKER_00And I also think like people really think that like nutrition policy is about nutrition, that it has to center around food. But I think a lot of times it's like broader public health measures that allow people to have more time and like health literacy. So it's really, really difficult. Even if you're, you know, married and there are two adults, if they both are working 40 hours a week, which is often necessary to live life nowadays, then like it's really difficult. Who is going to be doing all of this preparing and conserving of these fresh ingredients that you don't use? Because there often is a lot of waste when you start incorporating more fresh foods, produce, and someone has to be able to plan, prep, manage. Yeah, it's a lot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I mean, everything is connected, right? At the end of the day, the more bandwidth people have, the better choices that they can make. So any sort of policy that encourages that, like, for example, paid family leave, is a very common policy that I bring up all the time. But also like nutrition label laws, like food regulation in terms of what grocery stores can and can't display in the front of their stores. Like all these things are what real food policy looks like. They might not be immediately related to food, but they're all connected.
SPEAKER_00And even just like minimum wage, like it might reduce the amount of hours that people in a household have to work. It might mean that someone can stay home or work 20 hours instead of 40. And, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Subsidizing fresh fruits in neighborhoods that need it. And there are these forces that can't be tinkered with. We are certainly not doing now.
SPEAKER_00Or MJ, what if what if we tried willpower?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, what if we think our way to health?
SPEAKER_00We could try that. Just everyone had more willpower.
SPEAKER_01What if we ignore all the material limitations of our lives and just use our brain and think our way to health, you know? Well, that was a sad note to end on, but whatever.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I know how we can um end more upbeats.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, please enlighten me.
SPEAKER_00Uh, we can uh see what we've learned through the pop quiz.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah. What did we learn? I think we answered most of them, but let's go over them again.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so source of fiber, that's a vegetable and a whole grain.
SPEAKER_01Corn.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Popcorn is an awesome source of fiber, super easy. Uh, you can get it packaged. So that's like a great gas station or airport snack that has fiber.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Love that.
SPEAKER_01Ideally, just popcorn and not like a tube of butter on top of it.
SPEAKER_00Right. The ones that are like movie theater.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's too far gone.
SPEAKER_00Consider checking out the label just to see.
SPEAKER_01But just popcorn, fantastic.
SPEAKER_00Right. And then what happens to fiber when fruit is blended in a smoothie or juiced?
SPEAKER_01Smoothie, good. Juice can be fine, but you're just losing a lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_00Uh, what components of fiber scare people on the carnivore diet? How many can you remember?
SPEAKER_01Oh, uh oxalate. Uh, what's the other one? But there's so many of these tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of a chemical compound. But anti-nutrient is the stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I'm trying to think of what they're afraid of in the oatmeal.
SPEAKER_01They're deadly afraid of oats.
SPEAKER_00Oxalates, lectins, tannins, phytates, phytoestrogens. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's so funny because they're often projecting this image of like hypermasculinity, these carnivores or whatever. And if you dig deep, they are the most scared and insecure people that you ever meet.
SPEAKER_00No, it's a lot of insecurity for sure.
SPEAKER_01Oh boy. Someday we have to talk about their fear of like tofu and soy.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Or just like wearing shoes and brushing their teeth, putting on sunscreen, the things that like all mothers tell their young boys to do, they're sort of rebelling against. What are the two major categories of fiber?
SPEAKER_01Soluble and insoluble. Generally, soluble is better, but they're both good.
SPEAKER_00I skipped. Which is fiber considered? A prebiotic or probiotic?
SPEAKER_01Prebiotic feeds the bacteria. So fiber feeds the bacteria.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. Yay. Amazing. So we can go have our prebiotic sodas and um not sponsored, but love. Not sponsored. You can get any brand.
SPEAKER_01You can get any brand, unless I don't know, it would compromise the show if we take a sponsorship from Olipop.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that would be that'd be cool.
SPEAKER_01We can't. Susanna, out of principle, we can't, but we do love them.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Well, there you go. That's fiber. One of the more positive episodes of Ingredients.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Next episode, we're back to depression again.
SPEAKER_00Right, for sure. No more chipper attitudes.