Add fibre to your menu for family health

With family health of the top of your agenda, making sure what you put on the table every day is of absolute importance. And that is where fibre comes in. As a nutrient, fibre plays important roles in your body, ranging from maintaining a healthy gut, to helping reduce blood cholesterol and keeping your family within the right weight limits.

Here are a variety of ways to incorporate fibre into your meals:

• Serve fruits and vegetables without peeling them – mainly because the outer layer is rich in fibre.
• Instead of drinking fruit juices, choose whole fruits, because they contain more fibre.
• When preparing fruit cocktails, add whole fruit pieces in order to preserve their nutritional value and fibre content.
• Make sure you provide your family with both brown and white bread and encourage them to choose the brown, whole-wheat variety more often. Try to build this habit early with your children, as it will increase their fibre intake.
• When preparing pasta or grains, use wholegrain pasta and other wholegrain like whole wheat, burghul, and brown rice from time to time.
• Use legumes like lentils, beans and chickpeas as part of the main meal 2-3 times a week.

Good to remember:

A nice way to make fibre part of your family’s daily diet is by preparing snacks of raw vegetables during the day. You can cut them into nice shapes and serve it to your kids at home, include them in lunchboxes or serve them before dinner.