Easy Ways to Add More Fiber to your Diet

Fiber is an important part of our diet for many reasons.  The American Dietetic Association recommends that adults eat 20-35 g of fiber a day.  When you consider that one apple only has 3 grams of fiber, 35g may seem like an unreachable goal, but fear not, because it actually isn't as hard as it seems, and it doesn't require drinking your grandfather's gritty fiber supplement!  These are a few guidelines to keep in mind when you're grocery shopping to help you increase your fiber intake:

• Eat more beans and lentils, by far the highest source of fiber in our diet. Substitute beans for meat a few days a week.

• Choose whole fruits instead of fruit juices.

• Choose whole grains such as brown rice, quinoa, barley, and millet instead of processed breads, pasta, and couscous (which is really a pasta)

• Choose high-fiber, whole grain breads such as whole wheat or European-style bread (this bread makes delicious toast)

• Choose a high-fiber cereal such as Kashi Go Lean! Crunch, or Fiber-One.

• Buy high fiber snacks such as carrots, snap peas, almonds, walnuts, and fruit

• Eat your vegetables! There are many ways to make vegetables taste good. Check out this simple greens recipe from Debra Zambetti's blog, Savor Life.

To help you see how it's actually not that hard to eat 35 g of fiber in a day, I've compiled 2 sample days of fiber-containing foods.  Even if you don't eat this way everyday, it's easy to throw an apple and some almonds in your bag to munch on at work instead of hitting the vending machine.  Small changes in the choices you make can have big effects on your health.

Sample combinations for a day’s worth of fiber:

Breakfast: Kashi Go Lean Crunch cereal       9 g
(sprinkled with)  1 tsp ground flax seeds           2 g
1 serving Almond milk                                           1 g

Lunch: your choice of sandwich on
2 slices whole wheat bread                                   6 g
1 oz roasted almonds                                             3.3 g
1 medium apple                                                      3.3 g

Dinner: 1 cup brown rice                                   3.5 g
1 serving lentil stew                 6 g1
cup steamed broccoli                                           3 g

Total fiber = 37.1 g

____________________________________________

Breakfast: 1 Mestemacher sunflower bread 6 g
(toasted, with)  2 Tbsp almond butter              3 g
1 medium banana                                                  3 g

Lunch: bean salad 1 cup  (green/yellow/kidney)          6 g
Tabouli salad 1 cup                                                6 g

Dinner: 1 c  brown rice                                       3.5 g
1/2 c black beans                                                     7.5 g
1 medium tomato diced                                          1.5 g
1/4 avocado diced                                                    2.5 g

Total fiber =  39 g

Of course, this may not be all you eat in a day, but here you can see that it actually isn't that hard to get a good amount of fiber on a daily basis.

[As a point of reference, here are a few common high fiber foods with their fiber content:

]Kidney beans                                          8.2 g per 1/2c

Lentils                                                       7.8 g per 1/2c

Black beans                                              7.5 g per 1/2c

Sweet potato (medium)                        4.8 g

Apple (medium)                                      3.3 g

Tendonitis: Cortisone vs. Platelet-Rich Plasma

Tendonitis of the elbow, often called "Tennis elbow" is often not an inflammation, as the suffix "itis" leads us to believe, but a degeneration of the tendon fibers from over-use.  For this reason, doctors are now using the term "tendonopathy"  to denote a problem with the tendon.

Cortisone shots are commonly used to treat tendonitis, but may hinder long-term recovery from injury.  A NYT article a few weeks ago cited a large-scale review in the Lancet that showed, while cortisone shots relieved tendonopathy pain in the short-term, there are often significantly slower rates of healing in the long-term.  Cortisone shots may simply mask the pain and hinder the body's natural healing process, making it easier to re-injure yourself in the long run.

There is another technique, fairly new in western medicine, called Platelet-Rich Plasma injections (PRP).  In preparation for PRP injections, doctors take blood from the patient and separate out the platelets from the red blood cells (RBC).  Blood is normally composed of about 93% RBC and 6% platelets, but with PRP injections, the blood has been reconstituted to have 94% platelets and 5% RBC.  The idea behind these injections is that platelets are responsible for healing the tissue by promoting hemostasis, construction of new connective tissue, and the repair of blood vessels in the area.  They release proteins responsible for attracting macrophages and other cells that promote removal of dead tissue and encourage tissue regeneration and healing (Sampson, et al).  Tendons do not generally receive significant blood flow.  By injecting platelet-rich blood, they are nourishing the tendon more than it would be nourished by the body normally.  It would seem that these PRP injections are a better alternative to troublesome cortisone shots for tendon injuries.

TCM Connection:

In a TCM sense, these types of injuries often result from a yin deficiency not nourishing the muscles or tendons, leaving them less supple and easier to tear. This therapy is injecting a highly Yin substance into the area of injury to facilitate healing.   Although it is in line with TCM philosophy on a local level, systemically the patient may continue to be yin deficient and may have more injuries as a result.  A Chinese medical doctor would treat the person constitutionally as well as locally to bring the body into balance and prevent further injuries.

Sampson, Steven, Michael Gerhardt, and Bert Mandelbaum. Platelet rich plasma injection grafts for musculoskeletal injuries: a review.  Curr Rev Musculoskelet Med. 2008 December; 1(3-4): 165–174.  Published online 2008 July 16. doi: 10.1007/s12178-008-9032-5.

Bu Tong Zi Tong: How TCM treats functional pain

Western Medicine has brought us many great things, however, there are a few things that it still doesn't handle very well.  One of these things is functional pain, or pain without a clear cause.  An article in the New York Times (11/22/10) highlights WM's lack of understanding of functional abdominal/stomach pain. Many people suffer from stomach pain, but diagnostic tests show nothing physically wrong with the patient.  Patients often hear that it's "all in their head" and tire of having to go from diagnostic test to diagnostic test with no results.  Many MDs recognize that TCM is useful in the arena of functional pain and are referring their patients to acupuncturists for treatment.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has a different system of diagnosis from WM, which is one of the reasons that it's so well-known for treating pain.  At the heart of TCM's pain-treating philosophy is the Mandarin phrase, Bu Tong Zi Tong.  Bu Tong Zi Tong literally means, "No movement [there] is pain", or stagnation of any kind will result in pain.

Stagnation is a common concept in Chinese medicine and is applied to many ailments, but it can arise from many different causes.  For instance, too little exercise causes stagnation, resulting in various ailments from back pain to hypertension.  On the other hand, too much exercise can exhaust your yin and qi and cause stagnation, even if temporarily, (think lactic acid build-up in the muscles, or sports injuries that take a long time to heal).  Emotional stress can also cause stagnation, and is often one underlying cause of those previously mentioned stomach pains.

The key to treatment in TCM is figuring out what cause is underlying the stagnation.  Our ability to do that lies in the patient interview, our understanding of the yin-yang relationship, and qi flow in the body.  Chinese medicine asks a lot of questions that don't seem at all related to the pain, differentiates based on a range of a person's symptoms, both physical and emotional, and uses the location of the pain as a guide for treatment.  Acupuncture is used to open the meridians and get qi flowing on the surface of the body, and herbs may be used to move qi and blood on an internal level.  (The exact mechanism of how acupuncture works is still basically unknown in a western medical sense, and will be the topic of future posts!)  Dietary recommendations are often given as well.

WM is just getting on board with a more holistic approach.  By looking at the whole patient and understanding the patterns of qi flow in the body, Chinese medicine has been treating acute, chronic, and functional pain for thousands of years.

Prevention tip:

Moderate exercise is the best way to avoid stagnation before it starts to cause you pain.  Even if you're not ready to go jogging or get on a bike, taking a walk after meals, and exercises like Yoga and Tai Chi are things that most people can do on a regular basis.  Also, strong emotions can cause stagnation, so finding appropriate ways to observe your emotions and let them pass by can help avoid stagnation on a deeper level in the body.

Welcome to Integrating Health!

Integrating Health is here to help you understand:

* How Traditional Chinese Medicine can help you address various health needs. (TCM includes acupuncture, herbal medicine, and massage)

* How to understand TCM in a modern context, including how TCM's approach to health overlaps with and differs from Western Medicine.

* How to make healthy lifestyle choices that can prevent or correct imbalances in the body.

Being healthy is a result of choices we make in our lives everyday.  I hope you find this blog to be a useful tool in the quest for health and longevity.  Integrating Health is not written by an MD and is not dispensing medical advice.  Feel free to subscribe or to contact me with any questions!