Fibre is the new protein. Here's how to get 30g without a supplement

Why protein got the fame and fibre didn't

It isn't because protein matters more. It's because protein is easier to sell.

You can extract protein, flavour it, put it in a tub and charge $50 for it. You can stamp "20g protein!" on the front of a cookie and people will buy the cookie.

Fibre doesn't work like that. The best sources are tins of beans, bags of lentils, frozen peas, oats and fruit. They're some of the cheapest foods in the shop, nobody owns them, and there's no margin in telling you to eat them. So the marketing budget went elsewhere.

That's the whole reason you've heard "eat more protein" a thousand times and "eat more fibre" mostly from your gran.

What fibre actually does (it's not just about the toilet)

Fibre's reputation is "keeps you regular." That's true, and it badly undersells it.

1. It keeps you full for longer. Fibre slows how quickly food leaves your stomach, and certain fibres help trigger your gut's own fullness hormones, including GLP-1, the one the weight loss injections copy. If you read my "Nature's Ozempic" email, this is the same system. It's why a bowl of lentil soup holds you for hours and a white bread sandwich has you in the biscuit tin by 3pm.

2. It feeds your gut bacteria. You can't digest most fibre, but the trillions of bacteria in your gut can. They ferment it into compounds called short-chain fatty acids, which appear to help keep the gut lining healthy and inflammation down. Starve them of fibre and you're starving the part of your body that does a surprising amount of work for you.

3. It slows blood sugar spikes. Fibre slows down how fast sugar from a meal reaches your bloodstream. That's why an apple and a glass of apple juice are completely different foods, even though they contain the same sugar. One comes with its fibre still attached. The other has had it removed.

4. It helps with cholesterol. The soluble fibre in oats, beans and barley binds to cholesterol-rich bile in your gut and carries some of it out of your body. This is one of the better-established effects in nutrition, and it's why oats are allowed to carry a heart health claim in several countries.

5. It shows up in the long-term numbers. A large review published in The Lancet, pulling together decades of studies, found that people eating roughly 25 to 29 grams a day had noticeably lower rates of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, bowel cancer and early death than people eating the least. That's an association, not proof that fibre alone did it, but it's a big and consistent one.

And here's the one that surprised me most.

In a year-long trial, researchers gave one group a full, complicated heart-healthy diet to follow, with a long list of rules. The other group got one instruction: eat at least 30 grams of fibre a day. That's it. By the end, the fibre-only group had lost nearly as much weight as the group following the full diet.

One rule. Almost the same result. If you've ever given up on a diet because there were too many rules, that's worth sitting with.

The three kinds of fibre (and why you want all of them)

"Fibre" isn't one thing. There are three main types, and they do different jobs.

Soluble fibre dissolves in water and turns into a soft gel in your gut. It's the one that slows digestion, keeps you full, steadies blood sugar and helps with cholesterol. Find it in: oats, beans, lentils, apples, pears, citrus, barley, chia seeds.

Insoluble fibre doesn't dissolve. It adds bulk and keeps things moving through. Find it in: wholegrains, wholemeal bread, nuts, seeds, and the skins of vegetables and fruit.

Resistant starch is starch that escapes digestion and reaches your gut bacteria, where it behaves a lot like fibre. It's a favourite food of your gut bacteria. Find it in: beans and lentils, oats, slightly green bananas, and here's the fun one: potatoes, rice and pasta that have been cooked and then cooled. Cooling changes some of the starch into the resistant kind, and it stays that way even if you reheat it. So yesterday's leftover rice or a potato salad gives you a little more than the same food fresh.

This is exactly why I'm not a fan of getting all your fibre from a single powder. A supplement usually gives you one type. A plate of beans, vegetables and wholegrains gives you all three, plus protein, vitamins and minerals.

5 signs you're probably not getting enough

None of these prove anything on their own, but if several sound familiar, fibre is a good first place to look:

• You're hungry again an hour or two after meals. Especially after breakfast.

• Your energy crashes mid-afternoon. Often a sign your lunch hit your blood sugar fast and dropped it just as fast.

• You're not regular. The most obvious one, and the most ignored.

• Your "healthy" meals are mostly protein and salad. Chicken and leaves is a very low-fibre plate. More on that below.

• Beans and lentils rarely appear in your week. If that's you, you're almost certainly under 20g.

(Any sudden or lasting change in your digestion is worth a chat with your doctor, not just a change of diet.)

Where 30 grams actually comes from

Here's roughly how much fibre is in the foods worth knowing. Save this list.

The heavy hitters

• Lentils, 1 cup cooked: ~15g

• Split peas, 1 cup cooked: ~16g

• Chia seeds, 2 tbsp: ~10g

• Raspberries or blackberries, 1 cup: ~8g

• Frozen peas, 1 cup: ~8g

• Black beans, chickpeas or kidney beans, ½ cup: ~6–7g

The solid middle

• A pear, skin on: ~5–6g

• Half an avocado: ~5g

• A baked potato, skin on: ~4g

• An apple, skin on: ~4g

• Oats, ½ cup dry: ~4g

• Broccoli, 1 cup cooked: ~5g

• Wholewheat pasta, 1 cup cooked: ~6g

The small top-ups

• Almonds, a small handful: ~3.5g

• Popcorn, 3 cups: ~3.5g

• Wholemeal bread, 1 slice: ~2–3g

• A banana: ~3g

• A side salad: ~2g

Now look at the top and the bottom of that list.

A side salad, the thing most of us picture when we think "eating healthy," gives you about 2 grams. One bowl of lentils gives you 15. You could eat a salad with every meal and still be nowhere near 30.

Legumes (beans, lentils, chickpeas, split peas) do the heavy lifting. Every population known for eating a lot of fibre eats a lot of them. It's why "just eat more vegetables" never quite gets people to 30.

So the real question isn't "how do I eat more fibre?" It's this:

"How do I get beans and lentils into dinner most nights without it being boring?"

Hold that thought. I'll come back to it.

The "healthy plate" that's quietly low in fibre

Here's a day of eating that a lot of people would call very healthy:

• Breakfast: Greek yogurt with honey and a few blueberries

• Lunch: Grilled chicken salad

• Snack: A protein bar

• Dinner: Salmon with white rice and some green beans

Plenty of protein. Low in sugar. Looks great on Instagram.

Fibre? Somewhere around 10 to 12 grams. Less than half the target.

Nothing on that list is bad. It's just missing the foods that carry the fibre. And with a few small swaps, the same day looks completely different:

• Add a tablespoon of chia and swap blueberries for a cup of frozen raspberries: +12g

• Throw half a tin of chickpeas into the chicken salad: +6g

• Swap the protein bar for an apple and a handful of almonds: +6g

• Swap white rice for lentils or half rice, half lentils: +6–8g

Same foods you like, same amount of effort, and now you're over 35 grams. That's the whole game: not a new diet, just swaps.

A full 30g day, no powders

Here's what a normal day can look like:

Breakfast: Oats with a tablespoon of chia and a handful of frozen raspberries. ~15g

Lunch: Wholemeal toast with half an avocado and an egg, plus a pear. ~10g

Snack: A handful of almonds. ~3.5g

Dinner: Something built on beans, like a white bean and tomato skillet, or chickpeas roasted alongside fish or chicken, with greens. ~10–15g

That's comfortably over 30 grams, and nothing on that list is unusual.

But notice where the gap usually is: dinner.

Breakfast is easy to fix once. You find a high-fibre breakfast you like and you eat it most days. Lunch is often leftovers. Dinner is the hard one, because it's a brand new decision every single night, usually at 6:30, when you're tired and the delivery app is right there.

Three rules that make it much easier:

• Drink more water as you go. Fibre needs water to do its job. More fibre without more water is how people end up more blocked, not less.

• Rinse tinned beans well. It washes away some of the compounds that cause gas.

• Start with lentils and chickpeas. Most people find red lentils and tinned chickpeas gentler than kidney beans.

(If you have IBS, Crohn's, colitis or another gut condition, talk to your doctor before you change your fibre. Some types of fibre can make certain conditions worse, and you may need a more specific plan.)

3 easy recipes to start this week

None of these need anything special, and all of them are on the table in about 20 minutes.

1. Overnight oats with chia and raspberries (~13g fibre)

In a jar, mix ½ cup oats, 1 tablespoon chia seeds, ¾ cup milk (any kind) and 2 heaped tablespoons of Greek yogurt. Top with a cup of frozen raspberries. Lid on, into the fridge overnight. In the morning the berries have thawed into a sauce. Make three jars on Sunday and breakfast is done until Wednesday.

2. 20-minute red lentil and tomato soup (~12g fibre per bowl)

Soften an onion and two cloves of garlic in olive oil. Add a teaspoon of cumin and a pinch of chilli. Stir in 1 cup of red lentils (rinsed, no soaking), a tin of chopped tomatoes and about 4 cups of stock. Simmer 15 to 20 minutes until the lentils collapse. Squeeze in lemon, season, blend if you like it smooth. Serves 3 to 4, freezes perfectly.

3. Chickpea, spinach and tomato pan with eggs (~10g fibre)

Soften garlic in olive oil, add a tin of chickpeas (drained and rinsed), a tin of chopped tomatoes, a teaspoon of smoked paprika and a few big handfuls of spinach. Simmer 5 minutes, make two wells, crack in two eggs, cover and cook until the whites are set. Eat it with wholemeal toast. Dinner for two in 15 minutes, with protein and fibre in every bite.

Your fibre shopping list

If you want to start this weekend, here's everything you need for the first two weeks. Most of it keeps for months.

• A bag of red lentils

• 3 to 4 tins of chickpeas, black beans or white beans

• A bag of rolled oats

• A small bag of chia seeds

• Frozen raspberries or mixed berries

• Frozen peas

• Frozen spinach

• Pears or apples

• A bag of almonds

• Wholewheat pasta or wholemeal bread

That's it. Around the price of one takeaway, and enough to move you from 15g to 30g.

How to spot fibre on a label in 5 seconds

Packaging is designed to confuse you here, so three quick tips:

"Multigrain" is not "wholegrain." Multigrain just means more than one grain, and they can all be refined. Look for "wholegrain" or "wholemeal" as the first ingredient.

Brown isn't proof. Some "brown" bread is white bread with colouring. Check the fibre number, not the colour.

Use 3g as your quick rule. For bread, cereal and crackers, around 3 grams of fibre or more per serving is a decent choice. Under 1 gram and it's basically white flour, whatever the packet says.

What about fibre supplements?

Psyllium husk and similar supplements do work, they're cheap, and if your doctor has suggested one, keep going. They can be genuinely useful.

But they're a backup, not a plan. A spoonful of powder gives you mostly one type of fibre. A plate of beans, vegetables and wholegrains gives you all three types, plus protein, minerals and plant compounds that no supplement copies. And the food version actually fills you up. A glass of psyllium doesn't make anyone skip dessert.

And one note if you're on a GLP-1 medication like Ozempic or Wegovy: constipation is one of the most common side effects, and many people on them eat so little that fibre drops right off a cliff. Getting fibre from food (and drinking enough water) is worth raising with your doctor.

If you want to buy one you can get it here from amazon - Psyllium Husk

Quick answers to your questions

"Doesn't fruit have too much sugar?" Whole fruit comes with its fibre, which slows the sugar down and fills you up. It's juice and smoothies where the problem starts, because the fibre gets removed or blended down and it's easy to drink three pieces of fruit in a minute. Eat your fruit, don't drink it.

"I'm gluten-free. Can I still get to 30g?" Easily. Beans, lentils, chickpeas, oats (certified gluten-free), potatoes with skins, fruit, nuts, seeds and vegetables are all naturally gluten-free, and those are where most of the fibre comes from anyway.

"Does cooking destroy fibre?" No. Cooking softens it but doesn't remove it. Frozen and tinned versions count too, and they're often cheaper.

"What about my kids?" They need fibre too, just less than adults. The same foods work: oats, fruit, beans blended into sauces and soups. Red lentils disappear completely into a tomato sauce, and I've never had a child notice.

The people who already eat 30g without trying

Remember that question: how do you get beans and lentils into dinner most nights without it being boring?

There's a part of the world that solved it centuries ago.

Around the Mediterranean, beans and lentils turn up several times a week, in soups, stews, salads and side dishes. Vegetables are most of the plate, not a garnish. The bread is often wholegrain, dessert is usually fruit, and everything is cooked in plenty of olive oil, so it actually tastes good.

Nobody there calls it a high-fibre diet. Nobody counts anything. It's just dinner.

And it's no coincidence that it's the same way of eating doctors and dietitians rank as the healthiest on earth, year after year.

That's the version I'd copy. And it's exactly what I built my cookbook around.

The shortcut: 60 dinners with the fibre already built in

Here's what happens to most people after an email like this.

You're fired up. You buy the lentils. You make the soup, and it's great. You do the chickpea pan on Thursday.

Then it's the following Wednesday, you're tired, you can't remember what else you can do with a tin of beans, and it's pasta from a jar again.

Most people don't run out of motivation. They run out of dinners.

The World's Healthiest Diet fixes exactly that.

It's 60 Mediterranean recipes, and every single one is ready in 30 minutes or less. Every recipe has protein and fibre built in, so you're not hungry again at 9pm. Beans, lentils, fish, vegetables, wholegrains and olive oil, made into weeknight food that tastes like a holiday:

• Sheet-pan salmon with tomatoes, olives and lemon

• White bean and tomato skillet

• Lemon-herb chicken with roasted vegetables

• One-pan orzo with feta

There are chapters for fast breakfasts, bowls and lunches, seafood, chicken and meat, vegetarian dinners and mezze, and quick desserts, so it covers your whole day, not just dinner.

Per-serving macros are printed on every recipe, there are vegetarian and dairy-free swaps throughout, and the 5 Speed Rules show you how every recipe stays under 30 minutes.

And it comes with 6 bonuses that do the planning for you:

• The 4-Week Meal Plan: every dinner for a month, already decided. You never stand at the fridge wondering what to make.

• Weekly shopping lists, sorted by supermarket aisle, so the shop takes half the time.

• The Pantry Starter Checklist, so the beans, lentils, tins and grains are already in the cupboard. Stock up once, and most recipes need only a few fresh things.

• 15 printable recipe cards for the fastest meals, for the nights you don't want to look at a screen.

• The Macro Tracker, using the numbers already printed on every recipe.

• A mini-book of 30-minute Mediterranean desserts.

All of that is $310 of material for $29.99. One payment, instant download, no subscription, and it works on any device. It's rated 4.8★ by more than 1,000 home cooks.

Think about what that actually means. Less than the cost of one takeaway, and in return you get a month where dinner is already decided, the shopping list is already written, and the fibre gap we've spent this whole email on is closed without you counting a single gram.

Today's email is the why. This is the how, 60 dinners over.

Fix breakfast this week. Add beans to two dinners next week. That's how this starts.

Talk soon,
The Healthy Mail 🫘

P.S. Here's a little challenge. Tonight, add up roughly how much fibre you ate today using the list above, then hit reply and tell me your number. Most people guess high. I'll share the most surprising ones (anonymously) in a future email. And if yours comes in under 20, the fastest fix is dinner. The World's Healthiest Diet gives you a month of them, already planned, with the shopping lists done, for $29.99. 👉 Get it here