When you think about dietary fibre I bet you think EITHER about dry, brown rabbit food-esque ingredients OR if you are more like me, you think about poo. Or more specifically the consistency of your poo. No-one enjoys constipation.
Do you even know how much fibre is in your diet? Or how much there should be according to government guidelines? I was shocked to see I was among the majority of Brits who don't get anywhere near the daily recommended amount of fibre.
Last week I went along to meet experts from Arla who have created a fibre-rich creamy. silky-smooth, tasty yoghurt which you would never guess contains 4.7g of fibre in every 150g.
Yeah, if you are like me you have no idea what's a good or bad recommended daily amount (RDA) of fibre.
So -we are supposed to eat 30g of fibre a day. Most people do well to manage around 18g. Fibre is vital for good digestive health and significantly aids, how should we put this delicately.....regular, comfortable movement in the bowel area.
Eating 150g of Arla Fibre gives you 16% of your RDA and it's low fat and contains 27% of your recommended daily amount of calcium. Arla are keen for people to realise that just by making a few switches, you can bump up your fibre intake considerably without really noticing the difference in your diet.
They treated a group of us bloggers to a delicious three course lunch. Sneakily it transpired that some of us were eating a higher-fibre version of the meal than others and we were challenged to notice the difference.
We started with a risotto. Some ate risotto with roast squash, aged feta and baby basil. Others were served it with asparagus instead of squash. The squash made the meal higher fibre.
I had risotto with chorizo crumb, coffee, parmesan and baby basil. My neighbour Tom from Diary of the Dad had the same. Turns out mine was slightly higher fibre as the crumb topping of mine was made with wholemeal bread.
Moving on Tom and I both chose roast cutlet and croquette of lamb with salsa verde and potato gratin. Tom astutely noticed that our servings of salsa verde looked slightly different. His was a slightly deeper green and doing a taste test we established that mine was a pea and mint while his was flavoured with pesto.
We didn't spot that our croquettes were different. Mine had been coated with a wholegrain crumb making it higher fibre than his made with white breadcrumbs.
The veggie option swapped cous cous for quinoa and also had different versions of salsa verde.
Moving onto pud and we were all given beautiful French fruit tarts. Mine was topped with figs, raspberries and strawberries while Tom had kiwi, red grapes and cherries adorning his tart.
It wasn't too difficult to work out which was higher fibre, even knowing the fibre content of my fruits were higher than Tom's. My menu proudly stated that my tart had honey'd Arla Fibre yoghurt while Tom's had a standard Arla natural yoghurt. Then we found out that my tart base was made with wholemeal flour giving it another fibre boost- I hadn't even noticed.
Afterwards Tom said he felt he should go off and eat some beans to catch me up in the fibre stakes!
I was astounded to realise how easy it can be to tweak recipes and meals to sneak in some extra fibre and after tasting the Arla Fibre yoghurt I was delighted to realise even my fussy children wouldn't spot the added fibre which comes in the form of ground chicory inulin with no bland, brown or boring stuff in sight.
Arla Fibre is available in good supermarkets now in small (150g) pots in pineapple and passionfruit and raspberry flavours and in large 450g pots in strawberry and blueberry flavours.
You could easily ramp up the family's fibre intake just by making a few breakfast swaps.
For example, choose wholewheat seeded bread for toast or your bacon sarnies (or that 50/50 stuff if that change would be too much for your little people right away) and some Arla Fibre yoghurt instead of your normal yoghurt. Add beans to your toast and you are winning at fibre-boosting!
Throughout the day make similar swaps like snacking on rye bread with peanut butter instead of cheese and crackers, choose green pesto with sesame seeds instead of red pesto with pine nuts and raspberries instead of grapes in the fruit bowl.
A short video we watched at the event featured the very lovely Dr Ranj who made the easy to remember statement "Always go brown over white when it comes to bread, pasta and rice." which shouldn't affect the budget too much but will do your bowel the world of good.
As a final note, I did chuckle to myself spotting the queue for the loo on the way out of our lunch venue. Maybe all that extra fibre was having an effect sooner than expected!
Many thanks to Arla for a lovely lunch and for inspiring me to take more notice of how much fibre my family is eating.
Disclaimer: Sponsored post.
Do you even know how much fibre is in your diet? Or how much there should be according to government guidelines? I was shocked to see I was among the majority of Brits who don't get anywhere near the daily recommended amount of fibre.
Last week I went along to meet experts from Arla who have created a fibre-rich creamy. silky-smooth, tasty yoghurt which you would never guess contains 4.7g of fibre in every 150g.
Yeah, if you are like me you have no idea what's a good or bad recommended daily amount (RDA) of fibre.
So -we are supposed to eat 30g of fibre a day. Most people do well to manage around 18g. Fibre is vital for good digestive health and significantly aids, how should we put this delicately.....regular, comfortable movement in the bowel area.
Eating 150g of Arla Fibre gives you 16% of your RDA and it's low fat and contains 27% of your recommended daily amount of calcium. Arla are keen for people to realise that just by making a few switches, you can bump up your fibre intake considerably without really noticing the difference in your diet.
They treated a group of us bloggers to a delicious three course lunch. Sneakily it transpired that some of us were eating a higher-fibre version of the meal than others and we were challenged to notice the difference.
We started with a risotto. Some ate risotto with roast squash, aged feta and baby basil. Others were served it with asparagus instead of squash. The squash made the meal higher fibre.
I had risotto with chorizo crumb, coffee, parmesan and baby basil. My neighbour Tom from Diary of the Dad had the same. Turns out mine was slightly higher fibre as the crumb topping of mine was made with wholemeal bread.
Moving on Tom and I both chose roast cutlet and croquette of lamb with salsa verde and potato gratin. Tom astutely noticed that our servings of salsa verde looked slightly different. His was a slightly deeper green and doing a taste test we established that mine was a pea and mint while his was flavoured with pesto.
We didn't spot that our croquettes were different. Mine had been coated with a wholegrain crumb making it higher fibre than his made with white breadcrumbs.
The veggie option swapped cous cous for quinoa and also had different versions of salsa verde.
Moving onto pud and we were all given beautiful French fruit tarts. Mine was topped with figs, raspberries and strawberries while Tom had kiwi, red grapes and cherries adorning his tart.
It wasn't too difficult to work out which was higher fibre, even knowing the fibre content of my fruits were higher than Tom's. My menu proudly stated that my tart had honey'd Arla Fibre yoghurt while Tom's had a standard Arla natural yoghurt. Then we found out that my tart base was made with wholemeal flour giving it another fibre boost- I hadn't even noticed.
Afterwards Tom said he felt he should go off and eat some beans to catch me up in the fibre stakes!
I was astounded to realise how easy it can be to tweak recipes and meals to sneak in some extra fibre and after tasting the Arla Fibre yoghurt I was delighted to realise even my fussy children wouldn't spot the added fibre which comes in the form of ground chicory inulin with no bland, brown or boring stuff in sight.
Arla Fibre is available in good supermarkets now in small (150g) pots in pineapple and passionfruit and raspberry flavours and in large 450g pots in strawberry and blueberry flavours.
You could easily ramp up the family's fibre intake just by making a few breakfast swaps.
For example, choose wholewheat seeded bread for toast or your bacon sarnies (or that 50/50 stuff if that change would be too much for your little people right away) and some Arla Fibre yoghurt instead of your normal yoghurt. Add beans to your toast and you are winning at fibre-boosting!
Throughout the day make similar swaps like snacking on rye bread with peanut butter instead of cheese and crackers, choose green pesto with sesame seeds instead of red pesto with pine nuts and raspberries instead of grapes in the fruit bowl.
A short video we watched at the event featured the very lovely Dr Ranj who made the easy to remember statement "Always go brown over white when it comes to bread, pasta and rice." which shouldn't affect the budget too much but will do your bowel the world of good.
As a final note, I did chuckle to myself spotting the queue for the loo on the way out of our lunch venue. Maybe all that extra fibre was having an effect sooner than expected!
Many thanks to Arla for a lovely lunch and for inspiring me to take more notice of how much fibre my family is eating.
Disclaimer: Sponsored post.