AS FAR AS FIBRE GOES, MORE IS BETTER
Graham had some odd ideas, but his call to eat ‘roughage’ was on the right track
Professor John Cowles was not a Grahamite. Back in the 1830s when Oberlin College in Ohio decided to implement and enforce Sylvester Graham’s dietary regimen, Cowles expressed his displeasure by smuggling a pepper shaker into the dining room and openly applying its contents to his meal. Soon after this incident, the professor was fired, sparking rumours that his fate had been sealed by flouting the rules. And those rules were stringent. No meat, no sugar, no fat, no alcohol, no spices of any kind. Meals were based on fruits, vegetables and the hallmark of the Graham system, copious servings of bread made from whole grains.
Graham, a Presbyterian minister, can be labelled as America’s first nutritional guru, and like the plethora of nutritional advisers who prowl the internet today, developed a loyal following as well as hordes of critics. Graham had no scientific knowledge, not that there was much of this commodity to be had in the early 19th century. His notions were based on the diet that sustained Adam and Eve in Eden, essentially seeds, nuts, berries and fruits. Basically, this was a vegetarian, high fibre diet, although Graham would have been mystified by the current definition of fibre as the components of plant foods that cannot be broken down by human digestive enzymes that encompass waxes, lignin and various polysaccharides. To him it would have been roughage, the key to healthful living, in large part due to its ability to curb sexual excess, particularly in the form of “self-abuse.”
Lust, Graham claimed, was responsible for ailments ranging from indigestion to insanity and could be dampened by a diet featuring whole wheat baked goods. Whether Graham actually introduced the cracker named after him is somewhat controversial. His classic book A Treatise on Bread and Bread-Making, published in 1837, discusses the preparation of whole grain bread and condemns the use of additives such as alum to whiten flour, but makes no mention of crackers. “Graham crackers” first appeared in the marketplace in the late 1800s, but undoubtedly the “prophet of bran bread” would have approved of the original cracker made of whole wheat.
Graham’s ideas were embraced by Seventh Day Adventists and popularized by John Harvey Kellogg who headed the Western Health Institute established by the church in Battle Creek, Mich. Kellogg never consummated his marriage, believing that sex drained the body’s health, and was a proponent of treating insanity with a whole grain diet.
While Graham and Kellogg may have been overzealous in their promotion of the health benefits of whole grains, they were on the right track. Kellogg managed to demonstrate the positive effects of wheat bran on patients suffering from constipation and colitis. Then in the 1970s, after studying populations in sub-Saharan Africa, British physicians Denis Burkitt and Hugh Trowell concluded that a lack of unprocessed, high fibre foods in the typical western diet leads to a higher incidence of heart disease and colorectal cancer.
The benefits of a high fibre diet were pushed to the back burner with the emergence of the lowcarb regimens such as the keto and paleo diets that effectively targeted extra pounds. However, there may be a price to pay for that weight loss if we consider what should be an impactive study just published in the Lancet, one of the top medical journals in the world.
Researchers led by Professor Jim Mann of the University of Ostego in New Zealand scrutinized 185 prospective studies and 58 clinical trials that had examined the link between fibre intake and health in 4,635 people over a 10- to 20-year period. The results are astounding. Higher fibre intake was associated with lower body weight, blood cholesterol, blood pressure, risk of heart attack, stroke, bowel cancer and Type 2 diabetes. The data indicate that shifting 1,000 people from a low-fibre diet of less than 15 grams, which is common in the western world, to a high-fibre diet of more than 25 grams would prevent six cases of heart disease and 13 premature deaths from all causes. There was a clear dose-response relationship, indicating that as far as fibre goes, more is better.
Exactly why fibre should have such benefits is not totally clear, but the effects are likely multifactorial. Fibre prevents bile acids from being reabsorbed and being converted into cholesterol, it speeds potentially toxic compounds through the colon, reduces hunger by providing bulk, and serves as food for beneficial bacteria in the gut that crank out short chain fatty acids linked to colon health.
Now let’s cut to the chase. How do you get at least 25 grams of fibre? An apple has four grams; a banana, a carrot and a handful of almonds each have three; half an avocado has six; two slices of whole grain bread have four; a cup of cooked lentils has 15, half a cup of rolled oats has nine and the winner is … half a cup of Fiber One cereal with 14 grams. But be careful with the current versions of Graham crackers. Not much fibre and lots of sugar. Also, think twice about the ultra-lowcarb diets.