Eat Fiber and Avoid Constipation by: Rudy Silva
To have regular bowel movements and escape constipation you need to eat more fiber. Fiber from raw vegetable and fruits is better for you than fiber from grains. Why? Raw vegetables and fruits are live foods with enzymes, minerals, vitamins, and many antioxidants that are charged electrically. They have a magnetic energy that is absorbed by your DNA. So get more fiber from this source and less from grains.
Don't forget about water. If you don't get enough water during the day, your body will take the water out of your fecal matter in the colon and make your stools hard. Drink a minimum of 3 glasses a day of pure water and work up to drinking 5-6.
Here's where you need to do some “fiber work.” You need to increase your fiber intake to around 40 - 60 mg or more. Yes this is a lot. In the past, I recommended 35mg of fiber, but this is an average. You want to have more than the average amount. Here are some foods with high fiber. Add them to your eating habits so that you will not be constipated. Fiber does much more in your colon than make you regular, it:
- combines with toxins and moves them out in your stools
- combines with heavy metal and moves them out in your stools
- combines with cholesterol and bile and prevents them from being reabsorbed into your blood stream.
- helps to prevent colon cancer and other colon diseases.
- keeps your colon walls strong and healthy by not allowing toxins to accumulate there.
- cleans the colon walls and pulls toxins out of colon pockets and holes.
The following foods provide 3 gm of fiber. Add a variety of these foods to your daily diet to get more fiber into your eating habits. Start eating these foods little by little to get use to eating high fiber levels.
- 1/3 cup prunes
- 2 slices of whole wheat bread
- 1/2 cup cooked winter squash
- 1/2 cup fresh cooked green peas
- 1/2 cup cooked kidney beans, or pinto beans, or cowpeas
- 1 cup of cooked barley, 1 1/2 cup of brown rice, 1 cup of millet
- 3 corn tortillas
- 1 1/2 cup spaghetti, 1/3 cup of spinach spaghetti
- 1/6 cup 100% bran, 1/2 cup cream of wheat
- 1 cup applesauce, 1 cup of apple slices, 1/2 cup of bananas, 1/2 cup figs
- 1 cup fruit salad, 1 cup of prune juice, 1 ounce of raisins
- 1/2 avocado
- 1 cup blueberries, 3/4 cup of cranberries
- 1/3 cup guava, 1 kiwifruit, 1/2 of a mango, 2 nectarines, 1/3 papaya
- 1 orange, 1 cup peach slices, 1 cup pears slices, 1/2 persimmon
- 1 1/2 cup pineapple, 1 cup strawberries
- 1/2 cup raisins, 3/4 cup coconut
- 1/2 cup rhubarb, 1/3 cup of artichoke hearts
- 1.2 ounces of almonds, 1/2 ounce sesame seeds, 1/3 cup of sunflower seeds
- 1/4 cup of baby lima beans, 1/7 cup of black beans, 1 cup green beans
- 1/4 cup of kidney, pinto, white or navy beans, 1/3 cup of lentils
- 1/2 cup broccoli, 1/2 cup Brussels sprouts, 1 cup cabbage
- 2 carrots, 1/2 cup of carrot juice
- 1 cup cauliflower, 5 stalks of celery
- 1 cup of chard, 1 cup of mustard greens
- 1 ear of corn
- 1/2 cup of mixed vegetables
- 1/2 cup of olives
- 1/2 baked potato, 1 baked sweet potato, 1 cup yams
- 1 cup tomato juice, 1 cup vegetable juice
How do you know when you are starting to get plenty of fiber in your diet? When you are getting plenty of fiber in your diet, your stools weigh less and float in your toilet water. So if your stools sink in water then you need more fiber. This is just a general rule. If you eat excess fiber your stools may sink, but I doubt any of you fall in this category.