Radar: The Fibre Factor on BBC Radio 4

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The Fibre Factor

Let's face face it: fibre isn't a topic to set your heart racing. But, if you're willing to give this programme a chance, you'll find it more than a little informative and maybe even transformative when it comes to your diet. And you may even find Fearnley-Whittingstall (hereafter referred to as Whittingstall) isn't actually all that bad as a host.

As a child, I remember a box of All-Bran in the cupboard with all the other cereal. I remember it being a small, slim box, and wholly unappealing. Even when all of the other cereal had run out, we still would have avoided All-Bran. What was bran anyway? The miniscule dull brown shreds could well have been passed off as huge mouse poos. Whatever they were, they were not associated with a pleasurable breakfast experience, particularly not for us kids. Indeed, sprinkled on top of my parents other cereal, there was something almost medicinal about them, to be taken as a corrective, to, well, you know, get things moving again...

And this is the problem, as Whittingstall points out: we've come to associate fibre as only to do with poo, when actually there's more to it than that. At the same time, it's fair enough that we've only connected fibre with our stools, considering, let's face facts, a poo is one of only a few visible ways we can actually tell what's going on inside our bodies and, more importantly, how well things are going inside our bodies. Indeed, I kind of wish the programme had faced up to that fact a bit more. Anyhow, enter Whittingstall, who sets about in the space of five 15 minutes episodes telling us as entertainingly as he can about its other attributes, that are not just nice additions to a good diet and wellbeing, but central to it – and I've got to give it to him, he makes a compelling case.

The whole programme is predicated upon the dietary recommendation that we should eat 30 grams of fibre every day and how utterly poor we, as a society on the whole, are at doing that. It doesn't help that the huge companies who churn out Ultra Processed Foods actively want us to eat less fibrous food, this is because UPFs are designed to make use crave more of them, whereas fibrous foods slow down the release of sugar into the blood and curtail our appetites. Whittingstall is a cheerful host which is just as well considering the copious references interviewees make to bowels, intestines and poo. Dr Christian van Tulleken of Ultra Processed People fame had many well informed insights, noting that lack of fibre is a global concern. The programme certainly made a good case for fibre being about more than just helping us to poo, and how it's about slowing digestion, and lowering risk of diseases, heart or otherwise, later down the line. It seems to me that fibre is also about a feeling of wellbeing; a lack of fibre leads to sluggishness, tiredness, and feelings of being bloated.

Whatever you think of Whittingstall, this was a very effective and informative programme, and had certainly made me reach for a packet of seeds to scatter on my porridge, and an apple instead of another chocolate Hob-Nob.