So I started another thread about too many veggies but I’m just wondering how many grams of fiber we need. Are they not as necessary since we aren’t eating many carbs?
How much fiber do we need to be eating?
liversage
(Martin Liversage)
#2
I replied in your other discussion but I’m not really an expert on the subject. You might want to read the book Fiber Menace which provides a different perspective on the subject than the usual “more fiber is better”.
BillJay
#4
I totally agree that fiber is not critical to survival as evidenced by ZC cultures like Inuit and Masai, etc. as well as those who practice Zero-Carb.
But I do wonder if fiber, especially the prebiotic types that feed intestinal flora, ie. microbiome, are important for optimal performance.
I’ve read books like “Eat Dirt” and the “Human Superorganism” and given the incredible diversity of microorganisims that can be colonizing our gastrointestinal tract, I think that neglecting fiber can have a negative impact, at least initially.
What hasn’t been clear from these books or any of the Youtube videos I’ve watched so far is whether or not our microbiome will seek a new and optimized “normal” after reducing/eliminating fiber.
bokkiedog
(Nick)
#5
We don’t need any fibre. Whether any of us benefit nevertheless from ingesting some depends very much on the individual, the sort of fibre, and which studies you believe.
As an example: a relative of mine has adhesions in her lower intestine. Fibre wreaked havoc with them. She was thus ordered by a hospital consultant to eat a “sediment-free” diet. So she’s been on a zero-fibre diet for over a year, and she has never been healthier!
Whenever you see propaganda about the importance of fibre, it’s usually based on tendentiously-interpreted epidemiological studies. In reality, these studies don’t demonstrate that fibre is “good”, but that whatever sugary crap fibre replaces is bad! It’s a bit like the old quip that “people who smoke filter cigarettes are healthier than people who smoke rollups; so filter-cigarettes are medicine and should be recommended for all!”
Most of us here have replaced sugary-crap in our diets already, not with husks and wood-chippings, but with fat and fasting - so dumping a large pile of undigestable junk into our colons on top of the Good Stuff will not necessarily have the results mainstream banal advice would suggest!
The last-gasp attempt to justify fibre’s place on the plate is to promote its role as a prebiotic for a “healthy” gut biome. Again, this is very contentious, because it pre-supposes what healthy gut flora should look like in the first place: of course, this is massively skewed by viewing it through the lens of the usual carbage diet. If you want to see a wonderfully provocative piece that suggests we could have our gut-biome theories back to front, see @amber 's blog:
bokkiedog
(Nick)
#6
I think people have conflated the Hygiene Hypothesis, which has validity, with the Old Friends hypothesis, which is a little more ambiguous. Our immune systems certainly require a varied and “dirty” environment for effective training, but is the moment that our guts are deprived of wood chips and roughage-jells really the moment of our doom? It seems strange that our largely-carnivorous gut, evolved in an ice-age with scant fibrous opportunities, should suddenly require such careful tending of its zoo!
BillJay
#7
I’m not suggesting that we require fiber and we probably do far, far more damage to our microbiome through antibiotics, etc., but given individual diversity of our genetic, epigenetic and microbiome, we need to consider that some people may benefit from adding certain fibers from natural vegetable sources, while recognizing that there are those that function fine without it.
bokkiedog
(Nick)
#8
Indeed, I’m open to considering this, as I said:
However, fibre has been given a topsy-turvey bend-over-backwards benefit of the doubt since asceticism braided itself with profit thanks to Kellogg et al. As such, fibre now deserves more than a little corrective scepticism. Any claim made for its efficacy, let alone necessity, demands proper evidence and not just the usual Pascal’s Wager shrug! 
amber
(L. Amber O'Hearn)
#9
I disagree with the condemnation of antibiotics, as well.
I recently saw a study showing that the adverse affects in children who took antibiotics had been conflated with the disease that caused the need for antibiotics in the first place, and there was no extra effect of the antibiotics. I’ll dig that up later — must be off to work.
I’ve written a brief post on some thoughts about the benefits of antibiotics here: Musings on “good” bacteria, antibiotics, and brain function
amber
(L. Amber O'Hearn)
#10
OK. I couldn’t focus until I found it. 
Interpretation: Infection, but not antibiotic use, during infancy is associated with risk of childhood obesity. This finding will need to be replicated in future studies. Although our results do not rule out a potential effect of antibiotics on microbiome composition and the use of antibiotics should always be judicious, they suggest that treatment of common infections with antibiotics in infancy is unlikely to be a main contributor to childhood obesity.
djindy
#12
Looking at the childhood obesity angle seems a bit odd to me. I’m not sure I’ve heard anyone complain that anti-biotics in kids are causing obesity (though I’d believe someone has). I have heard claims that overuse or over-prescription of them allow anti-biotic immune versions of bacteria to thrive, or along the lines of what I thought @BillJay was suggesting of other deficiencies arising (certain vitamin deficiencies as certain gut bacteria that produce them when breaking down food aren’t there in large enough quantities, for instance).
amber
(L. Amber O'Hearn)
#13
I may be mistaken, but the Zeitgeist tells me that disturbances in gut flora are held responsible for everything from obesity to mood disorders to autoimmune diseases, and it is believed that there is a delicate, fragile ecological balance that must be maintained in order to avoid these various fates. Antibiotics destroy that balance, according to this narrative, killing off “good” bacteria, but, sadly, not “bad” bacteria, such that we must continuously restock the good ones like goldfish in an artificial pond, and feed them probiotics to keep them there. My feeling is that if we have to take such pains, then maybe that’s a clue they aren’t supposed to be there, and that the only reason they are helpful at all is that they push out other strains that would naturally be starved out if we weren’t eating so much junk.
djindy
#14
Yea, there are those that take the issue to some extremes (often trying to sell something), but there’s more even takes on the matter, and the anti-biotic immune bacteria problem is from more conventional medicine circles (the basics of which are pretty solid: they get rid of most of the bacteria of a species, and hopefully your body takes care of the rest or the rest are small enough not to cause harm, but with too much usage you’ve essentially changed the environment and the members of the species able to survive have a more meaningful advantage for reproduction, and thus may begin to thrive). I’ve actually never heard anyone claim anti-biotics don’t kill off bad bacteria (beyond that some bad bacteria survive as some members of a large species often have immunities to any given thing, like how some humans will be immune to any given disease whether anyone knows it or not).
If you are eating right though, you shouldn’t need much upkeep, the bacteria you want thrive in a decent eating environment and some are added by decent foods. People use the probiotics because someone is exaggerating the story to sell something (usually) and because they aren’t eating properly and don’t know how to get the stuff through their food. That doesn’t invalidate the claim that a healthy gut system is beneficial, and indeed we know that certain vitamins are made or broken down in the gut by such bacteria (like conversions of K1 to K2, though you can also eat K2 directly from some food sources, but just an example and a benefit is a benefit even if not absolutely necessary). There may be other real benefits (such as simply creating a more competitive environment for any harmful bacteria by simply having enough other organisms to compete for resources with, or something else), and they may not be huge factors, but I wouldn’t just throw the issue out the window either way, even if some people exaggerate the problem.
NOTE: I’m also not saying that we should throw out all anti-biotics either, of course. The problem is a matter of over use in the population, which is an obvious problem when children are prescribed anti-biotics for viral infections even though the doctor knows it will do nothing but wants to appease patients that expect to get something when they go to the doctor (might as well be a placebo). This has been a long standing and recognized problem in the U.S., even by the mainstream medical community.
amber
(L. Amber O'Hearn)
#15
I would never say that the connection between microbiome and these health parameters is spurious. I’m sure it’s quite real! My beef is only in the assumptions around how to fix that, and what a healthy gut biome looks like.
djindy
#16
If that’s the case, why take issue with the comment
“I’m not suggesting that we require fiber and we probably do far, far more damage to our microbiome through antibiotics, etc.”
?
That doesn’t really say anything about how to fix the problem, nor does it specify what a healthy gut biome looks like.
Genevieve
(Genevieve Biggs)
#17
Because all the hype over probiotics is to cover up the fact that plants ruin our guts, am I right?
amber
(L. Amber O'Hearn)
#18
I think that probiotics help sustain bacteria that don’t stay in our guts particularly well unless we keep feeding them and are therefore unlikely to be an evolved benefit, but which nonetheless outcompete unhealthy bacteria the plants are keeping alive.