Smooth Roughage? A Medical Inquiry
Aug. 24th, 2009 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peristaltorSo, years ago The Wife and I win a new paper shredder at a picnic raffle, a "cross cut" shredder. It was much nicer than the old $10 special, but cut differently; instead of just slicing the paper into full-length ribbons, it both ribboned the paper and cut the ribbons lengthwise every few inches. I further noticed something on the recycling bin -- no cross cut paper allowed. Long cut, yes; but cross cut paper fibers, I read, were too small, on average, to be of much use when the paper is re-pulped, mixed and pressed.
So I thought of this the other night during one of The Wife's commercial TV bouts when some product or another comes out with the promise of "fiber." Thing is, they showed the fiber being added to the product (a clear beverage, IIRC) with a spoon. Fine, seemingly granulated stuff hit the surface of the product and was stirred into the mix only to disappear. No visible strands!
Ah, but . . . years ago, I was told the benefit of fiber in one's diet was biomechanical, not chemical. The long fibers in fibrous foods kept their length, more or less, through the digestive process. Imagine the intestines. Peristalsis squeezes food downwards like fingers squeezing a toothpaste tube. Many foods, especially rich, doughy foods like cheeses and breads, tend to both stick together and stretch, thus confounding the peristaltic process. Blobs of these foods stretch under peristalsis only to rebound when pressure relaxes, at least until the foods chemically break down. Extreme cases can cause constipation.
One therefore had to eat "roughage," as it was called back then by folks like my parents and grandparents. Think of bits of hempen rope added to the intestinal Silly Putty that used to be a cheese pizza. The fibers don't stretch. When mixed with the pizza-esque goo, that added structural cohesion forms globs of mixed digesting foods that don't stretch and rebound, and thus do move along when the rings of intestinal muscle squeeze them on down the line.
But what good would tiny bits of non-stretchy foodstuff be? Uninterrupted lengths make a rope; little chunks make a mess. Don't believe me? Try tying a bundle using string cut into 1" bits.
Such chopped fibrous material would, at best, simply mix with the dough and mozarella. It would be like adding sanding grit to taffy, creating an infinitely stretchy blockage-in-the-making with a sandpaper surface.
So what's going on?
I suspect the FDA has allowed use of "fiber" as a beneficial additive without considering the minimum length of any given fiber needed for digestive efficacy. After all, most truly digestive fiber comes from natural sources -- greens, roughly-cut whole grains and brans -- all with random (but mostly longer) lengths. Without being able to quantify those lengths, there must be no body of peer-reviewed medical research showing any quantifiable efficacious qualities (or lack thereof). Therefore, that same fiber that helps truly move the poop train along can be legally cut into useless lengths -- but far smoother, far more tasty and digestible lengths -- and added to foods legally allowed to tout their "Fiber!" as a beneficial supplement.
Then again, I'm not a doctor, medical researcher, nutritionist, or anything professional or medically trained who can render a decision. I'm just some guy who thinks enough about peristalsis to name his LJ handle (and most of his Diablo characters) after the snake-squeeze of digestion. Anyone know if this notion is in the medical reality ballpark or not?![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alobar, got your ears on?
So I thought of this the other night during one of The Wife's commercial TV bouts when some product or another comes out with the promise of "fiber." Thing is, they showed the fiber being added to the product (a clear beverage, IIRC) with a spoon. Fine, seemingly granulated stuff hit the surface of the product and was stirred into the mix only to disappear. No visible strands!
Ah, but . . . years ago, I was told the benefit of fiber in one's diet was biomechanical, not chemical. The long fibers in fibrous foods kept their length, more or less, through the digestive process. Imagine the intestines. Peristalsis squeezes food downwards like fingers squeezing a toothpaste tube. Many foods, especially rich, doughy foods like cheeses and breads, tend to both stick together and stretch, thus confounding the peristaltic process. Blobs of these foods stretch under peristalsis only to rebound when pressure relaxes, at least until the foods chemically break down. Extreme cases can cause constipation.
One therefore had to eat "roughage," as it was called back then by folks like my parents and grandparents. Think of bits of hempen rope added to the intestinal Silly Putty that used to be a cheese pizza. The fibers don't stretch. When mixed with the pizza-esque goo, that added structural cohesion forms globs of mixed digesting foods that don't stretch and rebound, and thus do move along when the rings of intestinal muscle squeeze them on down the line.
But what good would tiny bits of non-stretchy foodstuff be? Uninterrupted lengths make a rope; little chunks make a mess. Don't believe me? Try tying a bundle using string cut into 1" bits.
Such chopped fibrous material would, at best, simply mix with the dough and mozarella. It would be like adding sanding grit to taffy, creating an infinitely stretchy blockage-in-the-making with a sandpaper surface.
So what's going on?
I suspect the FDA has allowed use of "fiber" as a beneficial additive without considering the minimum length of any given fiber needed for digestive efficacy. After all, most truly digestive fiber comes from natural sources -- greens, roughly-cut whole grains and brans -- all with random (but mostly longer) lengths. Without being able to quantify those lengths, there must be no body of peer-reviewed medical research showing any quantifiable efficacious qualities (or lack thereof). Therefore, that same fiber that helps truly move the poop train along can be legally cut into useless lengths -- but far smoother, far more tasty and digestible lengths -- and added to foods legally allowed to tout their "Fiber!" as a beneficial supplement.
Then again, I'm not a doctor, medical researcher, nutritionist, or anything professional or medically trained who can render a decision. I'm just some guy who thinks enough about peristalsis to name his LJ handle (and most of his Diablo characters) after the snake-squeeze of digestion. Anyone know if this notion is in the medical reality ballpark or not?
alobar, got your ears on?