Fiber

The beneficial effects of plant fibers

Plant fibers are one of the famous nutrients of plant foods, they belong to the category of carbohydrates and are directly linked to the health of our intestines.

What do we call plant fibers?

Plant fibers, also known as dietary fibers, are components of plant foods (most of their components come from the cell wall of plant cells), the consumption of which exerts various beneficial effects on our body.



The main characteristic of all plant fibers is that they are indigestible, that is, they pass through our gastrointestinal tract intact. In fact, this "specialness" of theirs is what makes them so important for health. 

The benefits

More specifically, during the food's journey through the gastrointestinal system, plant fibers are not dissolved by the gastric juices of the stomach. Instead, they create a kind of mesh, which internally holds nutrients (water, lipids, carbohydrates), thus slowing down the transfer of food from the stomach to the intestine, resulting in the feeling of satiety more quickly.


This mesh then passes into the small intestine where it delays the absorption of the nutrients that are trapped in it. The last station in the gastrointestinal tract is the large intestine, where the "friendly" bacteria of the area use the plant fibers as food resulting in the production of beneficial by-products, a process which has a significant beneficial effect on the human body.

Throughout their journey, the plant fibers enhance the motility of the intestine, thus preventing the occurrence of constipation and facilitating the cleansing of the intestine from the various products of digestion.