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Fibre and Saturated Fat

  • 20-12-2009 4:01pm
    #1
    El_Dangeroso
    Users Awaiting Email Confirmation Posts: 5,620 ✭✭✭


    The whole health source blog drew my attention to this paper.

    Free full text of the paper here:

    http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/39/2/338

    I had always known that cows get most of their energy from fermenting grass fibre into short-chain fatty acids (sat fat) but it never occurred to me that this would also happen in the human gut.

    But apparently 50g of soluble fibre will be converted by your gut bacteria into 16g of saturated fat called butyric acid (it's called BUTyric acid as it's plentiful in butter too). Does this mean that there's no such thing as a truly low saturated fat diet if you consume a reasonable amount of fibre?

    The great news is that butyrate is very good for the gut, potentially reducing inflammation and decreasing the risk of colon cancer.

    Soluble fibre converts far more effectively than insoluble as our gut would need to be much longer to convert insoluble as effectively, which I think may be why soluble fiber has a calorie count of 2-3 cals/g and insoluble has none.

    Potent soluble fibre sources include, brocolli, plums, root veggies, nuts and flaxseed (linseed) or of course, you can eat plain old butter too.

    Edited to add that this fermenting process of the gut is mimicked by pickling foods such as sauerkraut, which also has an excellent reputation for improving gut health.


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