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EAT BEANS AND GRAINS FOR HIGH FIBER HEALTH
Complementing your alkaline diet with lots of high fiber grains and beans is an excellent step toward balancing your healthy eating style. Focusing on fiber intake is an important part of an healthy lifestyle and should be a important part of every meal to help prevent gastrointestinal disorders. Eating a high fiber diet along with high alkaline food consumption is a must if you are interested in a diet that promotes anti aging. And if you want to control body fat and blood sugar levels then eating beans and grains should be a mainstay in your diet.
Grains have been an important part of the human diet for thousands of years. Early man cultivated grains such as wheat, oats, barley and rice for their early survival. It allowed large civilizations to grow and feed themselves without having to worry about hunting animals. All that was needed was fertile soil and lots of water to insure a plentiful crop of food for both people and the animals that they were raising.
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The Kellogg brothers of Battle Creek, Michigan were big advocates of a high fiber diet during the late 1800's. At that time Americans ate a breakfast high in beef and pork. They taught healthy nutrition at their health spa and worked hard at designing food products that would help prevent disease and encourage anti aging. They developed such breakfast items as corn flakes, grape nuts, granola and coffee alternatives. They were Seventh Day Adventist and believed in the power of disease prevention and reverse aging.
At that time in history, most of America suffered from some form of constipation. Meat was the breakfast food preferred by most people and their digestive systems suffered greatly. The invention of their popular breakfast cereal "cornflakes" was an accident but became the backbone to their high grain breakfast cereal campaign. Eating a high fiber diet was discovered to reduce certain kinds of cancer and people took this eating style as a way to improve their quality of life. Today the refining of grains has eliminated the natural fiber and nutritional benefits.
Any edible food material that passes through the intestinal tract undigested is referred to as fiber. There are two kinds of fiber: soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber forms a jelly-like substance in the intestines and water content in the stool is increased. Soluble fiber is found in citrus fruits, legumes (dried beans), oats, and barley. Researchers have found that soluble fiber decreases blood cholesterol and results in a lower blood sugar after meals.
Insoluble fiber is famous for increasing your feeling of fullness, stool size and bulk and helps reduce constipation and hemorrhoids. Insoluble fiber includes wheat bran, whole cereal grains and vegetables. Researchers have suggested that insoluble fibers may reduce colon cancer. These fibers drag unwanted waste from the digestive system and help prevent toxic waste build up.
On the North American continent people consume less than 50% of the dietary fiber levels required for maintaining optimal health. When you considered the food choices of the younger generations, this number may be lowered to 20%. Most medical guidelines suggest a minimum of 20-35 g/day of fiber for a healthy adult. No guidelines have yet been set for the elderly or very ill.
Studies show that rural Africans, who eat a diet high in grains and fiber, usually eliminate waste in about one-third of the time it takes people from urban, American cultures. Their stools are larger and softer. Because of the greater bulk and the speed that the food travel through the digestive tract, it is believed that harmful toxic substances are also swept out of the body before they can cause any problems. This is the case in most of the rural communities around the world. In rural China, the people do not suffer from the same diseases that the people in the large modernized, mega cities of China suffer. The health situation in Hong Kong is very similiar to those found in large American cities.