Fiber?

[sarad1]

Any ideas on how to get extra fiber into my diet without adding lots of veggies? Is there some sort of gluten-free cereal or granola or fiber supplement?

[melmak5]

Citrucel is labeled as "gluten free"

Psyllium husk is its main ingredient (which you can buy as is, at many natural/whole food stores)

Flax seeds and/or flax seed meal is another option. You can add them to your gluten-free baking, sprinkle on gluten-free cereals, in yogurt (if you can tolerate dairy), etc.

I personally cannot tolerate either and have chosen to add more fibrous veggies to my diet.

[Phyllis28]

Metamucil powder and capsules are gluten free. The waffers are NOT gluten free.

Also consider beans. A 1/2 cup of non fat refried beans has 8 grams of fiber.

[hathor]

Well, veggies are really good for you, you know OK, I'm a mother ... Maybe you just need to spice them up.

Fruit has fiber. So do legumes (beans, peas, lentils), nuts & seeds, and nongluten grains (corn, quinoa, wild rice, rice (more if brown), millet, buckwheat). Basically any whole plant food has fiber except something like iceberg lettuce. No animal product has any.

If you do a google search, you can come up with lists of the best fiber sources. You should be able to find ones you like.

I've found a gluten-free cereal called Nutty Flax that is pretty high in fiber. This is probably the most processed thing I regularly eat. It is just is it such a nice source of fiber and omega 3s, and I like the crunch. I'll alternate that with Bob's Red Mill gluten-free hot cereal, to which I'll add dried fruit, ground flax seed and perhaps some nuts.

I like refried beans or hummus in wraps (Food for Life's brown rice tortillas are my other processed food indulgence). Then I add whatever veggies I have around & some salsa or hot sauce.

[debmidge]

good topic..my husband can't digest fruits or vegetables and used to rely on wheat bran for fiber...he can't digest beans or flax either....

He uses Fiber Choice (their website says they are gluten-free) and when I bake him his gluten-free bread I add rice bran into the flour. I have corn bran which I add to his corn bread in the same way. However, this still isn't enough fiber (as compared to what he used to eat when he was not gluten-free).

It's really hard with these limitations.

[Nutmegger]

I've been doing really well with Open Original Shared Link. It's nothing but inulin (vegetable fiber) derived from chicory, so it's completely gluten-free. It's also pretty affordable -- a large container, which lasts me at least a month, is under $15. There are also coupons in my newspaper pretty frequently, which helps; I got $2 off my last purchase.

I use two heaping teaspoons a day -- one in a glass of water in the morning, and another mixed into my dinner at night. It's completely tasteless, colorless, and odorless, so you can do a lot with it.

[byrmanson]

I love "puffins" a wheat free cereal that has peanute butter and cinnamon flavors. I also found some great gluten free granola that I put in yogurt. Not as good as veggies for fiber, but good nonetheless. You can also take fiber supplements.

[BRUMI1968]

If you can tolerate flax, here's an interesting way to get fiber in your diet:

make "pancakes":

flax seeds or flax meal (2 cups seeds/3 cups flax meal

liquid coconut oil (coconut oil melted near a burner or in the dehydrator) (2TBS)

maple syrup (1/4 cup - 1/2 cup?)

water (1/4 cup)

You mix amounts of these (really, it's quite flexible, I gave hints but it's not like bread or cake - it's flexible) until you get a slightly stuck together substance. Form it like a pancake, and eat it with fruit and maple syrup. Yum. It tastes really good; the texture is odd, but workable. I think it's funny -- I like this stuff a lot, and since I've been eating it every day, I've been extremely regular. I keep it in the refer.

If you can't tolerate flax, try avocados or figs or other tasty items with lots of fiber.

[spunky]

I noticed too, that gluten free makes for low dietary fiber intake. I eat tons of fruits and veggies, but still, there seems to be no substitute in fruits and veggies for the types of fiber in cereal grains.

I can't eat flax, I've tried and tried, and when I add it to things I bake or sprinkle it on stuff, in a day or two, I start having sypmtoms similar, though much milder, to gluten. My husband convinced me to try citrucel one time, and my body did not like that stuff at all, 'nuff said about that (it was unpleasant).

So I CAN eat popcorn with no problems whatsoever. I noticed on the bag of plain popcorn kernals that 2 Tablespoons of unpopped kernals have 7 grams of fiber, the cereal kind of fiber that can be missing on a gluten free diet. Well, every night I normally like to make myself a big bowl of popcorn, and I use 4 Tablespoons of unpopped kernals to pop on the stove (microwaved popcorn CAN have chemicals and junk, so I just buy ordinary, cheap pop corn kernals that you pop up yourself)-- which gives me 14 grams of cereal fiber in addition to the fruits and veggies I eat. For me, this seems to keep everything working very well.

I realize some people cannot eat popcorn, but if you can, it might replace the missing fiber. I looked at that stuff you sprinkle on food, (is it called FIBER SURE or something???? I can't remember what the brand name was), but it said GLUTEN FREE on the label, and then the ingredients were WHEAT DEXTRIN. Okay...that confused me so I found their website for some explanation, and somewhere in their FAQS they explained they'd recently changed to wheat dextrin from whatever they'd been using before, and that it was gluten free because it was less than 20 ppm gluten, but that if you have any intolerance to gluten you should avoid the product. So, I couldn't tell if that was CYA or for real, and decided to just steer clear.

For me, a popcorn snack seems to add back what I lost from wheat, oats, and rye (I never ate barley!!).

[Nutmegger]

I looked at that stuff you sprinkle on food, (is it called FIBER SURE or something???? I can't remember what the brand name was), but it said GLUTEN FREE on the label, and then the ingredients were WHEAT DEXTRIN. Okay...that confused me so I found their website for some explanation, and somewhere in their FAQS they explained they'd recently changed to wheat dextrin from whatever they'd been using before, and that it was gluten free because it was less than 20 ppm gluten, but that if you have any intolerance to gluten you should avoid the product. So, I couldn't tell if that was CYA or for real, and decided to just steer clear.

You must be looking at something else, because FiberSure is absolutely 100% gluten-free. Its only ingredient, listed or otherwise, is inulin, which is nothing more than vegetable fiber. The inulin used by FiberSure comes from chicory root. You can see Open Original Shared Link for more information.

I have been using FiberSure now for about a month and have had tremendous success with it. I strongly recommend it for others to use. My GI says it's the only kind he suggests for people with celiac because it works so well, so I have total faith that it's gluten-free.

[spunky]

Sorry...I must be wrong about the name of the product. I looked at lots of them and the one that said wheat dextrin/gluten free was some stuff you sprinkle in your food as you cook it, for added fiber. I thought that sounded easier than glopping some icky junk down in a glass, but went home and looked it up on the net (sorry for the name confusion...maybe it was FIBER ONE, then or something) and saw they didn't advise it for people who avoid gluten.

Added note: now I see it was Benefiber that has the wheat dextrin. Sorry for the confusion! Thanks for correcting me!

[BRUMI1968]

I wonder if it isn't a bit of a misconception that whole grains have a lot of fiber. For the most part, other foods out-do them. Beans are high in fiber for sure, and some fruits/veggies are pretty high as well.

i.e. avocado 11.4 grams; bread 2 grams.

According to the mayo clinic's listing of high fiber foods, there are many fruits/veggies that have better fiber content than bread. Bran and oats are good, but really, other grains seem pretty inferior. And we can't have either of those anyway, right?

Open Original Shared Link

another list: Open Original Shared Link

I'm looking at a graph in "Paleo Diet for Athletes" by Dr. Cordaine that says the total fiber content in a 1,000 calorie serving of 3 refined cereals is 6g, 8 whole cereals 24 grams, 20 fresh fruits 41 grams, and 20 non-starchy vegies 185 grams. Granted, most of us can't imagine eating 20 veggies a day...but of course his point is that calorie for calorie, fruits and veggies are better sources of fiber.

I'm going to start keeping a food diary along with fiber, calories, sugars, etc....so I'll see what comes up with that as far as fiber goes. I've just gone with raw food and I'm wanting to make sure that I'm getting enough of everything.

Good eating!