When your diet is rich in fiber, your blood sugar stays steadier, and your food is more filling.And because fiber-rich foods are also usually rich in vitamins, minerals, and other valuable nutrients, you get an extra nutritional boost from eating them.
WHAT IS FIBER?
Dietary fiber comes from plant foods and falls into two main categories: digestible and nondigestible.
Nondigestible fiber (sometimes called insoluble fiber) comes in the form of cellulose, which makes up the cell walls of plant foods. Cellulose absorbs water, but it doesn’t dissolve in it. Nondigestible fiber is found in wheat bran, nuts, the skins of vegetables and fruits, crunchy vegetables such as celery and bell peppers, and leafy green vegetables such as collards and lettuce.
Digestible fiber (sometimes called soluble fiber) comes from the various gums, pectins, lignans, and other natural substances found in plant foods. Although it’s never actually digested—like nondigestible fiber, it cannot be broken down by your digestive system and simply passes through you—digestible fiber dissolves in water to form a soft gel in your intestines. Good sources of digestible fiber include beans, oatmeal, oat bran, apples, and pears.
Most plant foods contain at least some of both forms of fiber. The more fiber a food contains, the more likely it is to fill you up quickly— and keep you feeling full longer. High-carb, low-fiber foods—brownies, for example—don’t really satisfy your hunger for long. The sugar from these foods enters your bloodstream almost instantly, giving you a temporary feeling of satiety that quickly disappears as your blood sugar drops.You could eat five brownies in a row and still end up ravenously hungry—to say nothing of irritable, shaky, and mentally foggy—several hours later.
But what if you ate a protein-and-fat snack along with some fiber—a stick of celery stuffed with cream cheese, for instance? You’d be getting about 2 grams of protein and about 10 grams of dietary fat from the cream cheese,along with about 1 gram of fiber.This crunchy, easy-to-make snack will fill you up without sending your blood sugar up and down—in fact, it will help stabilize your blood sugar so you won’t be hungry or cranky later.
As you just learned in Chapter 14, fiber slows the rate at which glucose from your food enters your bloodstream. Generally speaking, foods that are low on the glycemic index and have a low glycemic load also have a lot of fiber. Review the AGR charts beginning on page 467 and you’ll see an extensive list of high-fiber vegetables— such as broccoli, cabbage, and zucchini—in the “eat regularly” column.
NET CARBS: THE ATKINS ADVANTAGE
Net Carbs have been explained briefly in earlier chapters, but we’d like to elaborate on this important concept. When you follow the Atkins Nutritional Approach (ANA) or the Atkins Blood Sugar Control Program (ABSCP), you need not count the dietary fiber in a food when calculating the amount of carbohydrates in a portion. In other words, the Net Carbs are the total grams of carbohydrate content per serving minus the fiber content (also minus the sugar alcohols and glycerine found in some reduced-carb foods). Why don’t you count the fiber? Because although fiber is technically classified as a carbohydrate, your body can’t break it down and convert it to blood sugar.
In most cases,the number of grams of Net Carbs per serving will be lower than the number of grams of total carbs. The only exceptions are foods that have virtually no fiber content, such as eggs and cheese. For these foods, the grams of total carbs and Net Carbs are the same.
How can you find the carb and fiber content of a food to calculate the grams of Net Carbs? On packaged foods, check the food facts panel, being careful to note the (often underestimated) definition of a serving that tops the list. Then look a little further down on the panel for the total carbohydrates listing—this gives you the grams of carbs per serving. Indented just below the total carbohydrates listing are the grams of dietary fiber per serving. To find the Net Carbs per serving, subtract the fiber per serving from the total carbs for that serving. To take a good example, consider the carbs in a 1-ounce serving of macadamia nuts. There are 3.2 grams of carbs in the serving and 1.9 grams of fiber. To find the Net Carbs, subtract 1.9 from 3.2 to get 1.3 Net Carbs per serving (3.2 – 1.9 = 1.3).The Net Carbs are less than half of the total carbs.
Reading the food facts panel only works with packaged foods, of course. For foods such as fresh vegetables, or when you’re eating out, you’ll need a little extra help.We suggest carrying Dr. Atkins’ New Carbohydrate Gram Counter with you or checking the free online carb counter at www.atkins.com.1
It’s tempting to think that a high-carb, high-fiber food is more acceptable when you look at it on a Net Carb basis. That’s almost always not the case, however. Foods that tout their healthful high-fiber content often still turn out to be very high in Net Carbs.Half a cup of bran cereal (not to be confused with unprocessed bran), for instance, has about 15 carb grams,but only about 3 fiber grams,so the grams of Net Carbs per serving still are about 12. If your carb threshold is 60 grams of Net Carbs or less a day,those 12 grams of carbs are a big part of your daily allowance.
If you have diabetes and are watching your blood sugar response with a glucose meter, observe closely for signs of elevation any time you eat a carbohydrate-dense food, regardless of the fiber content. If you have questions about the effect of a new food, check your blood sugar 90 minutes after eating the food.Your aim is to keep your blood sugar below 140 mg/dL after this interval. If your sugar spikes higher than that, you should probably avoid the food. But why even risk a blood sugar spike and the unpleasant blood sugar dip that will almost certainly follow? Instead, turn to the AGR list to help you choose carbohydrate foods wisely.
HOW MUCH FIBER IS ENOUGH?
New dietary guidelines from the Institute of Medicine recommend that women should get 21 to 25 grams of fiber daily and men 30 to 38 grams daily.2 Not surprisingly, given our high refined-carbohydrate diet, the average American typically gets only 16 grams of fiber a day.3 Although it’s obvious that the average American is not getting enough fiber to fulfill the standard recommendations, it’s difficult to put a number on exactly how much fiber you really need. Keep in mind that these recommendations were developed based on studies of people whose diets did not restrict carbohydrate intake.
If you eat at least five standard servings of fresh vegetables and salad greens every day, you still might not take in the recommended amount of dietary fiber, but you would, so long as you’re doing it properly, be getting excellent nutrition and probably more high- quality fiber than most Americans. Even if you need to restrict your carbs to the Induction level of 20 grams,you’ll still be getting five servings per day.
At the very least, the amount of fiber in your diet should be the amount necessary to maintain comfortable bowel movements. That amount can vary considerably from person to person.When you follow the ABSCP,you may well end up eating more fiber than you did on your high-carb diet.Once you remove the refined carbs and start eating a lot of leafy greens, low-glycemic-index vegetables, nuts and seeds (see the AGR charts beginning on page 467), you’ve already made a beneficial change.
You may certainly add a fiber supplement to increase your fiber in- take. Remember that any dietary change may change your bowel pattern temporarily. Attempt to maintain a bowel pattern that is normal for you—most people will have a comfortable bowel movement at least every other day. If you had frequent diarrhea prior to starting the ABSCP, you may experience fewer loose stools.
Sheila W. is a patient of mine who had part of her colon removed. For several years she avoided lettuce and other raw veggies because of rapid onset of diarrhea after consuming these foods. She began the ABSCP to support a family member who was using it to address metabolic problems. To her amazement, Sheila’s bouts of diarrhea disappeared with a controlled- carb plan. She was able to reintroduce salads and other raw veggies without needing to stay near a restroom. —MARY VERNON
For proper bowel function, be sure to drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water each day and engage in regular exercise. As you know, these are integral components of both the ANA and the ABSCP.Experiment a bit with your vegetables to find higher-fiber choices you enjoy. You might try substituting chicory for some of the other salad greens, for example. One cup of chicory has 7 grams of fiber and only 1 gram of Net Carbs. Compare that with 1 cup of shredded romaine lettuce, which has only 1 gram of fiber and about ½ gram of Net Carbs. With such small adjustments, you come out way ahead on fiber without adding very much at all to your Net Carb count for the day.
To increase dietary fiber, try a dose of crushed flaxseeds or un- processed bran.Both these excellent natural remedies for constipation are available at any health food store. Stir 2 teaspoons of flaxseeds into a glass of water and drink it down in the evening, or sprinkle them on your salad at dinner—you’ll probably get results the next morning. The advantage of flaxseeds is that in addition to your dose of fiber you get some additional omega-3 fatty acids, plus some extra magnesium and zinc. If you don’t like flaxseeds or find them inconvenient, an alternative is a bulk-forming fiber supplement made from psyllium (Fiberall, Metamucil). To avoid adding sugar, select only the unflavored, sugar-free form of these products and follow package directions. Because the digestible fiber from flaxseeds and psyllium passes through you instead of being absorbed, the Net Carbs per dose are basically zero. (Have your flaxseed or psyllium dose a few hours apart from any medications and supplements.If you take them together,the fiber may block your absorption of drugs or supplements.)
Increasing your fiber intake too rapidly, whether from high-fiber foods or from a supplement, can cause digestive upset, including gas, bloating, cramps, and diarrhea. To minimize these problems, increase your intake gradually by adding a little more fiber every few days and giving your digestive system a chance to adjust.
When you eat fresh, low-carb vegetables, nuts, seeds, and lowglycemic fruits, you get not only fiber the natural way, but also lots of other important nutrients. Read on to the next chapter to learn more and realize how varied and delicious your diet will be as you follow the Atkins Blood Sugar Control Program.
WHAT’S YOUR FIBER IQ?
1. The two kinds of dietary fiber are:
2. How do you find the Net Carbs per food serving?
3. Which foods are good sources of digestible fiber?
4. Which foods are good sources of nondigestible fiber?
Answers
them.4.a,b,c. 1.a.2.b.3.all of