Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | The Smushy Rule: an easy way to tell if a food is soluble or insoluble fiber

Fiber can be confusing. Many plant foods (and ONLY plant foods - no animal product will contain any fiber) have both soluble fiber and insoluble fiber .

Fiber charts are notoriously unreliable, so they're not an easy solution.

The best rule of thumb for telling at a glance if a food is more soluble or insoluble fiber is whether or not something is "smushy". It sounds silly, but it's a fast and easy - and pretty accurate - gauge of whether or not something can be considered safe.

If you can "smush" a plant food - like bananas, cooked rice, cooked potatoes, etc. - that points to soluble fiber and a lack of insoluble fiber. If you couldn't "smush" it - think raw cabbage, kernel corn, wheat bran - that indicates insoluble fiber.

The smushier a food seems (and you don't have to actually conduct the experiment, it's usually easy to just visualize it and it's obvious) the safer it will be. The more seeds, hulls, tough skin, fibrous material, stems, etc. the more insoluble fiber you're looking at.

If something is not at all smushy raw, but much smushier cooked (spinach, celery, etc.) that is a good indication that the cooking process has broken down that insoluble fiber and made it much easier for your gut to handle.

Think smushy!

XXOO
Heather

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Heather is the Administrator of the IBS Message Boards. She is the author of Eating for IBS and The First Year: IBS, and the CEO of Heather's Tummy Care. Join her IBS Newsletter. Meet Heather on Facebook!

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