Dietary and Functional Fiber
10/30/06 06:07 PM
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Syl
Reged: 03/13/05
Posts: 5499
Loc: SK, CANADA
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The notion of dietary fiber being composed of SF and IF was replaced with a new definition by the Food Nutrition Board in 2000. The old SF & IF definition was based on chemical and physiological behaviour of fiber. The new definition separates total fiber into two components dietary and functional fibers. These are defined as follows
Dietary Fiber consists of nondigestible carbohydrates and lignin that are intrinsic and intact in plants.
Functional Fiber consists of isolated, nondigestible carbohydrates that have beneficial physiological effects in humans.
Total Fiber is the sum of Dietary Fiber and Functional Fiber.
As described in the report, Dietary Reference Intakes: Proposed Definition of Dietary Fiber (IOM, 2001),
Quote:
Dietary Fiber includes plant nonstarch polysaccharides (e.g., cellulose, pectin, gums, hemicellulose, β-glucans, and fibers contained in oat and wheat bran), plant carbohydrates that are not recovered by alcohol precipitation (e.g., inulin, oligosaccharides, and fructans), lignin, and some resistant starch. Potential Functional Fibers for food labeling include isolated, nondigestible plant (e.g., resistant starch, pectin, and gums), animal (e.g., chitin and chitosan), or commercially produced (e.g., resistant starch, polydextrose, inulin, and indigestible dextrins) carbohydrates.
One of the impacts of this change is that dietary fiber in addition to SF & IF includes things like resistant starch. These are starches that act like SF and they can be gooey. Also unlike some other SF they are easily fermentable by the microflora in the large bowel. For example, resistant starches are found in rice, pasta and potatoes.
New insights into dietary fibre is a good overview article written by nutrition and dietary specialists at Kellogg Canada.
Reference
Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids (Macronutrients) (2002), Chapter 7. Dietary, Functional, and Total Fiber copyright 2002, 2001 The National Academy of Sciences,
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