Do you need fiber?
While checking out with 30lbs of beef at the grocery store, you may notice the lack of fiber in your grocery cart.
But really… is fiber necessary? Do we need fiber to be healthy?
Most people think of fiber as a natural pipe cleaner, it cleans the intestines and arteries preventing colon cancer and heart attacks.
Some studies show that fiber might not really be as great for health as most people make it out to be. (r, r)
Not only is fiber not protective of disease, but there is also evidence that it can be harmful.
As this study shows, patients suffering from constipation experienced improvements in their symptoms when they completely remove fiber from their diets. That seems to go against everything people believe about fiber.
As fiber consumption goes up, so does the incidence of diverticular disease. Another study where a couple thousand people underwent colonoscopies found that the more fiber they ate and the more bowel movement they had, the higher the likelihood of colon disease. (r)
In fact, many gut restoration protocols used in functional medicine completely remove fiber.
So why do we think it’s necessary to keep fiber in our diets?
Soluble and Insoluble Fiber
There are 2 types of fiber, soluble and insoluble. Conventional wisdom tells us that soluble fiber is good for us because it slows digestion down and insoluble fiber is good because it speeds things up.
With insoluble fiber, think of something like tree bark. It doesn’t dissolve in water. It’s abrasive to our intestines and it’s basically totally incompatible with our GI tract. Even bacteria who love feasting on fiber don’t handle insoluble fiber easily.
Common forms of insoluble fiber include nuts, seeds, whole grains, root vegetables, beans, and more.
With soluble fiber, think of something like mashed potatoes. It absorbs water like a sponge and moves slowly through the intestines and bacteria love this stuff. Because it moves more slowly through the intestines, bacteria have more time to feed on and digest this type of fiber.
Common forms of soluble fiber include well-cooked beans, avocados, cruciferous vegetables, pears, apples, and more.
Bacteria ferment both types of fiber creating gases like carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and the often demonized methane. We release these gases as farts or they get trapped causing cramping and bloating.
Fiber Fallacy
What caused the world to believe fiber is necessary for good health?
In the late 1800s, thanks to the industrial revolution and milling technology, we started stripping the bran and wheat germ away from the grain. Hence we created ultra-fine, fiber-free grains – the most refined flours in human history.
This new modern diet consisted of highly refined flours that were lower in fiber than traditional diets. People began to notice that areas that had not yet “upgraded” to a modern diet had a lower incidence of modern diseases.
People assumed the loss of fiber from the diet was the difference-maker. We ignored the fact that by concentrating these grains we created mega-dose poisons.
Additionally, the idea that fiber is healthy is reinforced by many large food-conglomerates that launch large-scale marketing campaigns advocating for their products on the basis that they will improve health because of their fiber content – think FiberOne bars.
Regardless, the countless studies on fiber consistently show that adding fiber back into our modern diet doesn’t restore health.
This meta-analysis shows the utter lack of evidence that fiber protects us from colon cancer or bowel problems or disease.
The Truth About Fiber
At best, fiber is a bandaid solution to a bad diet that can reduce blood sugar spikes, and making us feel bloated so we don’t eat more of our modern man-made poisons.
At Meat Health, we believe the biggest benefit of fiber is that it helps reduce the harm caused by the plant-based foods that contain it.
So it’s good for a bad diet, but unnecessary and even harmful on a diet we are designed to eat.
If you’d like to learn more about what to look out for when doing a meat-based diet, try watching the Meat Health Masterclass:
