Adequate fiber is a real problem

[Daisy]

Ground flax seed works well as a flour replacement in many recipes functioning as a thickener or binder.

Have you ever tried making bread with it? I keep meaning to try this recipe…

[AnnM]

Agree. I think that most people on this discussion board (in the short time I’ve been involved), are looking at the general guidelines for keto and modifying it for themselves however it works for them. Whether it is the exact number of carbs/day, amount of protein, amount of fiber, folks are doing their own thing in the way that works best for them. As a T2DM, I started around 80g carbs/day, then went to 60g, then 50g, then 40g, and now I’m usually under 30g and many days I’m below 20g. I do not take a fiber supplement although I have done in the past pre-keto. Now, I eat the veggies that I want and tabulate the carbs accordingly. I’m in my 5th week of keto, and what I have not had is the diabetic neuropathy that affected my GI tract so much, causing massive diarrhea and brutal pain. I would have to go lie down for several hours. Believe me, I don’t miss that.

Instead, I now am quite regular, not giant BMs, but daily smaller ones. As long as I get some veggies from at least 2 of my meals, I’m happy. I’m not constipated any more either, which cycled with the GI neuropathic diarrhea. As some folks have said, we do n=1, or YOU DO YOU.

[brownfat]

Looks like a good recipe. I mostly do crackers and sometimes crusts. Getting the texture right on leavened breads is challenging and I’ve mostly stopped trying and just go with nut and seed loafs as my bread substitute to minimize disappointment. I sometimes do a version of the nut and seed loaf with ground flax, rolled oats and chia mixed with kefir and let it ferment a few days into a bubbly sourdough’ish mash before adding the eggs and additional nuts and seeds and then let it rise for a couple hours before baking. It produced a dense bread texture with a bit of tang that I liked a lot but oats are fairly carby so I don’t use them often.

[tdean]

You should try the facebook keto community, if you think this place is hostile, you won’t last 2 minutes there!

[Daisy]

I’ve mostly stopped trying

I agree. The flax loaf does look like it has potential so must try it. I mostly just end up thinking, “I can’t be bothered!” especially when it usually turns out to be a bit pants!

[tdean]

Psyllium husk? all fiber - little else. Indians (not red ) have been having it for centuries. It is dual purpose - works for loose and tight stools equally well.

Yes, I can confirm that Psyllium husk is the go to on Keto if you are concerned about fiber intake. Try to mix it in with food, apparently it could cause blockages if you drink it in one big lump, never experienced that personally but its what I read. I don’t use a lot of it but I do use it everyday, about a teaspoon in my omelette mix works well for me.

Psyllium: Benefits, safety, and dosage

[Blue1]

Interesting recipe. I’m always looking for something new and I’ll have to give it a try. The recipe I use has more ingredients and has a wheat bread flavor and look to it. I almost gave up on baking bread. I used to call my keto bread, keto brick . I read that you must re-grind all dry ingredients, almond flour, flax seed meal and psyllium husk powder so that they’re super fine before you use them in a recipe. I just put them in my mini food processor. It works and results in a bread that rises nicely and has a tender crumb.

[Bellyman]

Had a recipe for me to naan many months back. It had a generous amount is psyllium husk in it, I believe for texture. Oh, yeah, it moved me.

It was tasty but potent.

[Daisy]

Let me know how it turns out if you give it a go.

[Janie]

If you are so worried about it then stock up on Metamucil. Surely you’ve heard of it?

I had to give it to my cat back in the 70’s who got run over, survived, but had to have his tail amputated. He had nerve damage and had trouble pooping so the vet said sprinkle some Metamucil on his food every few days. Worked like a charm.

My point is the stuff has been around for decades for those needing fiber. Take it or not. Your choice.

There’s a lot of things we don’t know about the long term effects until years later. We used to pour liquid mercury on the lab benches in chemistry in college and play with it. Talk about dumb.

But all studies have to be funded by someone and that information is more important than the study results themselves.

So you say fiber has been “studied for years” but I haven’t seen you post any references to any yet. Would be interesting to see them. I’m sure you have looked them up since this subject seems important to you.

[Kris86]

This is what I take. It seems to work well on the business end. My only complaint with fiber like this and fiber from vegetables, is I most definitely feel bloated for the next 12ish hours.

[gabe]

I’m saying that the keto “community” is getting weird, like one has to be a true believer or one is not let in, you’ll get ridiculed. I only discovered this trait keto fols have this past week, when I ask questions. It was like I was challenging some orthodoxy. Really odd. Folks need to maybe settle down a bit. We all have a lot more to learn about what’s going on in the human body where nutrition and health are concerned. So much we don’t know, keto people included. I love my keto experience thus far, but I’m not impressed at all with its “community.”

Yeah but I think this forum is the most reasonable of all of them.

I’m one of the biggest “heretics” on this forum. I consistently complain that I’ve plateaued despite LCHF; I challenge the knee-jerk dismissal of high LDL-P despite luminaries like Peter Attia saying they’ve pulled patients off keto from hyper-responding; I frequently raise Phinney’s objections to longer fasts despite the fervour with which the keto community is embracing fasting. Those are just the heresies off the top of my head.

Oh, and I question the need for most people to be in constant ketosis. So there’s that elephant in the room.

But I think most of the people are here because of the science, and I find that a lot of people here are natural skeptics. I really like that, because elsewhere you find that “keto” is just another dogma or religion. For me and for many here, it’s merely an ongoing experiment.

I’m convinced that there’s sufficient evidence to cut sugar and most starches out of the diet permanently. The proportion of fat in the diet, and, as you seem to be raising, the question of fiber in the diet – these kinds of things are far from settled science and I agree with you, zealotry has no place in discussion of them.

[PaulL]

One guy got real abrasive with me because I suggested fiber might be important for good health. Is this “community” based on science and learning, or are you folks like, well, a cult?

Well, it’s not as if dietary fiber hasn’t been extensively studied, and there actually are many studies that “suggest,” that lack of fiber increases risk of some forms of cancer, most notably colon cancer. So the question about lack of any fiber in keto isn’t academic.

Asking you to provide links to a couple of papers describing randomizd controled studies published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals is pretty much de rigueur around here. If you know of any such papers from which the conclusion that men need 35 grams/day of fiber was drawn, I for one would be very interested to read them. It sounds unlikely to me, but then, what do I know? That’s why I’d like a chance to look over the evidence.

It is pretty well established that there is no science whatsover that backs up current dietary guidelines. The Minnesota Coronary study, the Women’s Health Initiative, the MRFIT study, and many others all failed to show that saturated fat and cholesterol cause disease; in fact, those studies and many others show that higher cholesterol levels actually appear to have a protective effect against heart disease, especially as we age.

In a similar manner several recent studies of salt intake and health have all shown that we actually need more than twice the current U.S. recommendation. One such study is the PURE study, out of McMaster University, and Andrew Mente’s presentation of the data to the Low-Carb Breckenridge 2018 conference is linked in the Low-Carb Breck 2018 thread. Since low sodium can also lead to constipation, this finding might be an indication that with enough salt in our diet, we don’t need as much fiber. (I don’t believe that’s been studied, however.)

So since the authoritative recommendations for how much saturated fat and how much salt we should eat have been shown to have no scientific foundation, can you blame us for suspecting that the fiber recommendation might be baseless as well? Can you at least see that we might want to take such a recommendation with a grain of . . . (wait for it!) . . . salt?

[Rajseth]

Great I was planning to try psyllium husks already, now I.am more motivated. Isn’t 4 spoons a lot? I used pre-keto only 1 spoon, in a big glass.

I don’t mix it with water I find the texture yuck. I just put a heaping tbsp in my mouth and down it with a sip of water. Takes some practice. I can down four heaping TBSP with less than 4 oz water. That’s how I break any fast longer than 2 days. No GI issues
But then, I’ve never had GI isssues with much in the past so YMMV

[margot17]

I actually never tried it with normal water because pre-keto I followed an ayurvedic diet, which is all about warm water. The husks were my personal initiative, as I had read they would help to lose weight (I doubt they did). Anyway mixed in warm water the became immediately like jello, you would have hated it.

[DiMo]

That happens with cool water too if you don’t drink it down quickly enough. I HATE that texture. Triggers my gag reflex like nothing else.

[AnnM]

I tried psyllium years ago when it was still a fad, and I hated it. Refuse to take it ever again. Shaklee used to have a fiber supplement that you could add to your shakes, hot cereals or soups and was great. Don’t know if this is the same stuff.

Shaklee Fiber Plan Tablets - Improved Formula
Diets high in fiber aid digestion, promote regularity, and support colon health. The FDA recommends 25 grams of fiber per day, but Americans typically consume only half that amount. Fiber Plan Tablets can help you get all your fiber on a “regular” basis every day.
SRP: 13.20 weight: 0.15

Fiber Plan, Unflavored
Diets high in fiber aid digestion, promote regularity, and support colon health. The FDA recommends 25 grams of fiber per day, but Americans typically consume only half that amount. Fiber Plan Tablets can help you get all your fiber on a “regular” basis every day.
SRP: 40.80 weight: 0.98

[Janie]

The FDA recommends 25 grams of fiber per day, but Americans typically consume only half that amount.

That right there is a good example of making up a lie to sell your product.

I just checked Cronometer and I had 45% of the RDA for fiber with only 15 carbs for the day. Today it was all meat, dairy and fat and I STILL managed to get to almost half.

They are counting on most people having zero idea how much fiber they eat in a day. No way a person eating a SAD wouldn’t reach the RDA easily.

[semarla]

I’m curious. If you ate “all meat, dairy and fat” today, where specifically did your fiber come from? If you got 45% of the 25 g recommended, you had over 11 g of fiber on only meat, dairy and fat. That puzzles me.

[semarla]

In other words, if you had only 15 carbs today, and 11 of them were fiber, what the heck did you eat? Did the chicken still have feathers on it?