What are soluble fibre foods?
Soluble fibre foods are essential for a healthy diet, being a great and natural way to lower the levels of LDL cholesterol. Soluble fibre foods are required to keep the digestive system healthy. It can also help moving food at a slower speed through the stomach, making you feel fuller longer and helping you maintain or reach an ideal weight with less effort.
Soluble fibre foods examples
Whole Grains
The highest of the soluble fibre foods in the grain category is oat. Ingesting half a cup of cooked oat bran or oatmeal for your breakfast is the best way to get that amount of soluble fibre foods you need, especially if you can mix it with some fruit also high in soluble fibre. Barley is another kind of grain with good levels of soluble fibre that can also be cooked as a cereal.
Fruits
Prunes, pears and citrus fruit (like oranges or grapes) are the highest soluble fibre foods in the fruit category. Other fruits with nice levels of soluble fibre include nectarines, peaches, plums, apples, bananas and blackberries. It’s a good thing that fruit can be eaten in many ways. You can mix some of your favorite fruits together to create an easy way to add to your daily soluble fibre intake. You can also put them into a low-fat yogurt (and oat-packed granola) to prepare a healthy meal, great for soluble fibre intake. Finally, maybe taking along fruit to eat when hungry for a snack may be just the fast food Mother Nature intended for us.
Legumes, Seeds and Nuts
Legumes are, without a doubt, the best soluble fibre foods. Half a cup of cooked legumes can provide as much of it as three pieces of fruit. While lima and kidney beans are at the top, pinto, navy, black and northern beans come right after at a close second.
Lentils, whether yellow, green. or orange, have almost the same soluble fibre as one piece of fruit or cup of oats, but far more overall fibre. The same happens with chick peas and black eyed peas.
Eating just 1 tablespoon of ground psyllium seeds can get you more fibre than any legume, grain, fruit or vegetable available. This is often found in products such as Metamucil.
Vegetables
While there are not many vegetables with high levels of soluble fibre, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and carrots are the soluble fibre foods in the veggie category that are good both for your heart and your digestive system.