Official nutritional advice

ceiswyn

Interestingly, I was reading an unrelated message board where someone claimed that their doctor was being ridiculous and not listening to them, telling them to eat more fibre when they clearly got enough because they, specifically, ate vegetables with their lunch.

So it’s not just me who’s heard a message that fruit and veg are great fibre providers.

ceiswyn

(Incidentally, as I was pre-logging today’s meals, I realised that the biggest source of fibre in my diet is vegetarian meat substitutes. A serving of four Quorn crispy chicken nuggets has as much fibre as 200g of baked beans. Two Linda McCartney sausages has the fibre of three slices of multigrain bread, for half the calories. Has anyone seen this mentioned in any official guidance?)

lemurcat2

I finally went to the NHS link, and I really don't understand what's wrong with the advice:

It's important to get fibre from a variety of sources, as eating too much of one type of food may not provide you with a healthy balanced diet.

To increase your fibre intake you could:

Choose a higher-fibre breakfast cereal such as plain wholewheat biscuits (like Weetabix) or plain shredded whole grain (like Shredded wheat), or porridge as oats are also a good source of fibre. Find out more about healthy breakfast cereals.

Go for wholemeal or granary breads, or higher fibre white bread, and choose wholegrains like wholewheat pasta, bulgur wheat or brown rice.

Go for potatoes with their skins on, such as a baked potato or boiled new potatoes. Find out more about starchy foods and carbohydrates.

Add pulses like beans, lentils or chickpeas to stews, curries and salads.

Include plenty of vegetables with meals, either as a side dish or added to sauces, stews or curries. Find out more about how to get your 5 A Day.

Have some fresh or dried fruit, or fruit canned in natural juice for dessert. Because dried fruit is sticky, it can increase the risk of tooth decay, so it's better if it is only eaten as part of a meal, rather than as a between-meal snack.

For snacks, try fresh fruit, vegetable sticks, rye crackers, oatcakes and unsalted nuts or seeds.

It's giving ideas for small changes people could make. That's quite similar to how ours does it too.

I think there should be more discussion of beans and lentils in particular, but one reason is this insistence on talking about food groups as a way to teach it, and so they get kind of included in vegetables, and then kind of included in proteins (where any discussion of meat substitutes would be, although ours doesn't talk about products like that, just recommends non meat sources of protein be included such soy and legumes and pulses). Since the protein category is mainly about foods with no fiber, it's not discussed there.

I find it a little odd that the NHS one seems to focus on baked beans for beans, rather than plain beans which can be used in lots of ways. Black beans have 15 g of fiber for 227 calories. Navy beans have 19 g for 255 cal. Lentils have 15.5 for 230 cal.

sijomial

"is it just me, or is the official nutritional guidance we're given often kind of terrible?"
Yes I think it's just you.
I read the NHS link you posted it and found it very sensible and stressed the importance of varied sources of fibre.
Veg was the 5th bullet point and fruit was the sixth.

"Everyone tells you to eat fruits and vegetables to get fibre."
No they don't just say that at all. Did you skim past the cereals, grains, starches and pulses mentioned?
BTW - I also don't exclude pulses and beans when people mention vegetables.
Giving individual examples or anecdotes of poor or limited advice also can't be extrapolated into everyone giving terrible advice.
I have always heard wholegrain bread being mentioned as a good fibre source, that also can't be extrapolated into every single Doctor doing the same for all their patients.

"Why do they do this?"
They don't.

"Do the official nutritionists actually know ANYTHING about nutrition?!"
Clearly they do.

Theoldguy1

ceiswyn wrote: »

(Incidentally, as I was pre-logging today’s meals, I realised that the biggest source of fibre in my diet is vegetarian meat substitutes. A serving of four Quorn crispy chicken nuggets has as much fibre as 200g of baked beans. Two Linda McCartney sausages has the fibre of three slices of multigrain bread, for half the calories. Has anyone seen this mentioned in any official guidance?)

Not looking at the labels, but since you are talking about vegetarian meat substitutes, it would be fair to assume vegetables/beans most likely along with grains are major ingredients. So yes these ingredients are in the official guidance.

cmriverside

@sijomial I want you on my debate team. You and lemurcat. The other team would concede if you just showed up.

AnnPT77

ceiswyn wrote: »

(Incidentally, as I was pre-logging today’s meals, I realised that the biggest source of fibre in my diet is vegetarian meat substitutes. A serving of four Quorn crispy chicken nuggets has as much fibre as 200g of baked beans. Two Linda McCartney sausages has the fibre of three slices of multigrain bread, for half the calories. Has anyone seen this mentioned in any official guidance?)

I wouldn't expect them to be mentioned.

1. They're niche foods used by a relatively small minority of people.

2. The ones you name are branded products, and the government shouldn't be boosting branded products by name. The general category "vegetarian meat substitutes" varies: Some have fiber, some don't have much at all. Tofu and seitan, for example, have quite negligible fiber, typically less than 1g fiber per 100g of the food.

Heck, I'm vegetarian, and virtually none of my (more than ample) fiber comes from "vegetarian meat substitutes".