What's with Fiber , livre ebook

Turner Publishing Company - Monica Spiller , Gene Spiller

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

160 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

According to the authors, fibre is not the simple roughage it was once thought to be and it does not come alone. Found in plant foods, fibre is a complex substance and in whole foods it is always accompanied by a number of nutrients, from antioxidants, essential oils, minerals, and proteins, to vitamins and beyond. This book spells out exactly why good health depends on fibre's presence in everyone's diet.

Sujets

Santé et bien-être

Diététique

diététique

Nutrition

Fitness

Health

Diet

Diets

Informations

Publié par	Turner Publishing Company
Date de parution	01 juillet 2005
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781591205838
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0748€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The information contained in this book is based upon the research and personal and professional experiences of the authors. It is not intended as a substitute for consulting with your physician or other healthcare provider. Any attempt to diagnose and treat an illness should be done under the direction of a healthcare professional.
The publisher does not advocate the use of any particular healthcare protocol but believes the information in this book should be available to the public. The publisher and authors are not responsible for any adverse effects or consequences resulting from the use of the suggestions, preparations, or procedures discussed in this book. Should the reader have any questions concerning the appropriateness of any procedures or preparation mentioned, the authors and the publisher strongly suggest consulting a professional healthcare advisor.

Basic Health Publications, Inc.
28812 Top of the World Drive
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
800-575-8890
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Spiller, Gene A.
What's with fiber? : enjoy better health with a high-fiber, plant-based diet / Gene and Monica Spiller.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59120-583-8
ISBN-10: 1-59120-111-X
1. High-fiber diet. 2. Fiber in human nutrition. I. Spiller, Monica II. Title.
RM237.6.S65 2005
613.2'63—dc22
2005015024
Copyright © 2005 by Gene and Monica Spiller
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the copyright owner.
Editor: Roberta W. Waddell
Typesetting/Book design: Gary A. Rosenberg
Cover design: Mike Stromberg
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Remembering a Key Encounter
PART ONE • What Is Fiber and What Comes with It?
1. What Is Fiber?
2. Nutrients and Phytochemicals That Come with Fiber
3. Soluble Fiber Is Fermented
PART TWO • Fiber in History and Disease Prevention
4. Plant Foods through the Ages
5. Fiber and Health through the Ages
6. From Crude Fiber to Dietary Fiber
7. Health of Isolated and Non-Western Populations
8. The Reductionist’s Dilemma in Food Research
9. Fiber, Colon, and Constipation
10. Fiber and Cancer of the Colon and Rectum
11. Fiber and Diverticular Disease
12. Fiber and Weight Control
13. Fiber and Diabetes
14. Fiber, Heart Disease, and Cholesterol
15. Fiber, Breast Cancer, and Other Diseases
16. What the Medical and Nutrition Experts Currently Think about Fiber
PART THREE • Unveiling the Health Benefits of Whole-Plant Foods
17. What’s with Fiber in Whole Grains?
18. What’s with Fiber in Beans and Legumes?
19. What’s with Fiber in Nuts?
20. What’s with Fiber in Oil Seeds?
21. What’s with Fiber in Fruits?
22. What’s with Fiber in Vegetables?
23. What’s with Fiber in Seaweeds and Fungi?
24. What about Extracts, Juices, and Teas?
Epilogue
Appendices
Appendix A. Graphs of Carbohydrates, Water, Proteins, and Fats in Plant Foods
Appendix B. Tables of Total Dietary Fiber in Whole-Plant Foods

Glossary
Resources
References
About the Authors
This book is dedicated to the pioneers of fiber in nutrition and health,
Captain Surgeon T. L. Cleave and Dr. Alexander Walker,
and to Drs. Hugh Trowell and Denis Burkitt who discovered them.
They all inspired us far beyond the scientific concepts they promoted,
opening a new era in nutrition and disease prevention.
We are also dedicating it to all the people of the world who
find better health in a high-fiber, plant-based diet.
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without our frequent interactions over more than thirty years with many researchers and writers in the fields of nutrition and fiber. And thanks to our discussions over the past twenty years with many of the authors of scientific chapters in the CRC Handbook of Fiber in Human Nutrition, we have developed a unique insight into what fiber and phytonutrients can do. We would especially like to thank the three physician-researchers James Anderson, Antonia Tricholoupou, and David Jenkins, who gave us their personal viewpoints, included in this book.
Alexa and Marika Bruce have helped search and condense the research work that goes back to the 1970s and continues now. Rosemary Schmele and Ann Gunderson have given us valuable suggestions on selected parts of the text. Antonella Dewell helped with preparation of the charts and tables in the appendices. John Richards of Menlo Park, California, has created the drawings that illustrate, in a simple way, the magic of a plant.
We thank our publisher, Norman Goldfind, for his decision to publish this book, and our thanks also to Roberta Waddell who edited it.
Introduction
How much better it is to prevent disease than to cure it.
—DENIS BURKITT, M.D., 1977
What’s with fiber? All our plant food is built with fiber and is ours for the eating, provided we eat plant foods whole. This book presents the fascinating history of fiber, its consumption patterns through the ages, and the evolution of refined foods for the rich and unrefined foods for the poor. You will read how the tremendous diversity of fibers helps to ensure that all types of fiber are present in the diet. People are told to eat at least 25 grams of fiber each day, but not told of the need for a variety of fiber, or that 25 grams should be the minimum intake, far from the ideal 30–50 grams daily. This valuable, but often overlooked, information will be stressed throughout the book.
What’s with Fiber emphasizes that, in order to obtain enough fiber and phytonutrients (plant nutrients), you need to eat a plant-based diet that is naturally high in fiber. High-fiber foods and their nutrient-rich extracts will help you achieve better health and prevent disease, while enjoying great whole, natural foods.
Is fiber a magic healer and disease-prevention wonder? Are fibers from different foods the same or different? And what about all the nutrients and the newly discovered phytochemicals—many of them highly protective and beneficial—that exist with fiber in food? What the many different kinds of fiber all have in common is that, except for a tiny amount of animal foods, such as the edible shells in softshell crabs, they are found only in plants.
Recent headlines talk about overweight and obesity becoming one of the major causes of death in the United States, surpassing cigarette smoking. The last hundred years have seen a decline in death from infectious diseases and an increase in deaths from degenerative diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.
There is no doubt that, with obesity currently epidemic in the Western world, increasing the consumption of fiber-containing foods and decreasing the intake of refined foods—refined grains and fiber-free animal products, such as meats—will help prevent overweight and obesity and their sad health consequences.
The press continually reminds people of the health problems that are prevalent in this millennium, and the chronic diseases that are related to Western lifestyles, almost all of which are related to low-fiber, refined-food diets. “World Facing Diabetes Catastrophe” was the headline of a recent Reuters news item about a conference on diabetes in Paris. Dr. James Anderson, who has studied diabetes and fiber for decades, says, “Diabetes mellitus is emerging as a major health problem throughout the world, and current evidence suggests that increased fat intake and decreased fiber intake may contribute.” Although diabetes is linked to a higher risk for heart disease and other health problems, it does not have to be a catastrophe. This runaway disease can be effectively reduced simply by combining a high-fiber, whole-plantfood diet with reasonable physical activity.
In this book, we answer key questions about the relationship of fiber and its protective compounds to health. We present the science behind fiber and phytochemicals, and we include all the fibers found in different foods and the nutrients and phytochemicals that come with fiber. In this highly accessible, easy-to-read book, we remind you of the important point that, as with refined flours for example, many nutrients are lost when the fiber is removed in the process of refining plant foods, such as grains. Although some nutrients may remain after the fiber is removed, as in fresh fruit and vegetable juices, and such ancient beverages as green tea, these super sources of many precious nutrients should be used only as additions to a high-fiber diet, not in place of whole fruits and vegetables.
We discuss how the birth of the phytochemical-antioxidant era in the 1990s confirms that reductionist research (which desperately tries to attribute the development of a disease to a lack of just one food component, such as fiber) can lead to conflicting results. We remind you that there is more to fiber than celery strings or wheat bran. And we do it using very little medical jargon. The book is designed to give you a user-friendly, readable overview of the benefits of individual plant foods.
Part One helps you understand what fiber is and what comes with it in natural unrefined plant foods. Part Two explores the fascinating history of fiber, going back thousands of years, and coming up to the era that started in the 1970s when the researchers T. L. Cleave, Alexander Walker, Hugh Trowell, and Denis Burkitt opened the door to the current fiber era. We present the history as well as the practical side of fiber in the diet because we believe it can help people understand the inner workings of better health. We define reductionism and its pros and cons, and we define the various types of fiber and phytochemicals, from antioxidants to tartaric acid. We discuss in dept