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Let’s Talk About Dietary Fiber

Posted by Rural Route 1 on 12/23/2014

The definitive movie snack, popcorn are not only fun to eat, but they can be healthy for you, as well. Made mostly from carbs, popcorn are a great source of dietary fiber, a food component which people are not having enough in their diets. But do you know why we should eat more dietary fiber?


First of all, you need to understand there are two types of dietary fiber, soluble and insoluble. That means that one is dissolved in water, while the other one isn’t. Both types are good for you, although they behave differently in your bowel and benefit you in different ways.


What soluble fiber does is basically it slows down the tempo at which the food you eat is broken down. Why is that good, you might wonder? Well, you see, by slowing things down, it also prevents blood glucose spikes, or too much glucose in your blood at a time. This is important because these spikes are a contributing factor to a serious disease you’ve probably heard of - diabetes. Soluble fiber also lowers cholesterol by doing the same thing, giving your bowels more time to digest.


Insoluble fiber, on the other hand, just kind of hangs out there. There’s nothing that our bowels can do with it, so its benefit is the fact that it gives bulk to your stool. This is important because having regular, easy stools is good for you - it makes it less likely for your to develop hemorrhoids and other diseases of the GI tract. Popcorn is especially rich in this type of fiber.


So, does that mean you should eat popcorn every day, by gallons? Well, no, it doesn’t. While adding more fiber to your diet is beneficial for you, doing it all at once is not the best choice to make. It should be introduced from different sources over a period of time. But still, one of those sources could be popcorn, because as sources of dietary fiber go, popcorn is a pretty good one.