Best Indian Foods for Getting More Fibre

Fibre is the part of plant food your body cannot digest, and it is what slows the sugar in a meal from arriving all at once.

ICMR-NIN puts the target for an Indian adult at around 40 g a day. Most people eating a rice-and-roti-heavy diet with little vegetable or dal fall well short of it.

The national guidelines suggest 400 g of vegetables, 100 g of fruit and 85 g of pulses a day. Hitting those three lines gets you most of the way to the fibre target without counting anything.

Where the fibre actually is

• Whole pulses — chana, rajma, lobia, whole moong. Higher in fibre than washed dals.
• Vegetables with the skin on — lauki, bhindi, carrot, beans.
• Whole grains in their whole form — dalia, whole wheat, barley.
• Fruit rather than juice, where the fibre survives.
• Nuts and seeds — peanuts, flaxseed, roasted chana as a snack.

The pulse point is worth dwelling on. In Indian glycaemic index testing, the two lowest-scoring foods of twelve were white chickpea sundal at 24.1 and white peas sundal at 29.8 — both whole pulses, both fibre-heavy, both ordinary food.

Add fibre gradually and drink more water as you do, or you will simply feel bloated and give up in a week.