High Fiber Food For Constipation

From the Sea

Let us bring together the wisdom of the West and the East in choosing high fiber food.

A western doctor such as Doctor Atkins recommends psyllium husks in your salads and juices for constipation relief. A Japanese doctor on the other hand, laments increasing westernization of traditional Japanese diet which creates a more constipated nation, recommends more seaweeds as food. In this article, I would like to pay more attention to the Japanese doctor.

"Ewww eating slime," was what I had heard. Just between you and I, slime is the BEST part of seaweed dietary fiber. Sufferers of irritable bowel have to be selective about fiber. The slime of the seaweed is in fact, a kind of water soluble fiber which is suitable for them, you and I. Yeap, seaweed pleases everyone's digestive tract though not necessarily taste buds. That's the for the quality.

Now, let's compare the quantity. 100 grams of psyllium husks contains 71 grams fiber. The same quantity of hijiki* has 43.3 grams, roasted nori 36.0 grams, sliced kelp 35.6 grams and dried kombu 27.1 grams. Fiber in the mentioned seaweeds are many times higher than most grains, vegetables and fruits.

This is a terrific revelation for me, a lover of seaweeds. I can eat them forever. No matter how much I discipline myself to accept oat bran and prunes, I can never fall in love with them. I am glad seaweeds is superior in comparison.

This mean whenever I am too lazy to wash and chop lettuces, I'd just add extra wakame into miso and still consume high fiber. Or, I can roll nori with julienned carrots, cucumbers and avocado to make sushi. Nori provides dietary fiber at least twenty times more than carrots and cucumbers, and four times more than avocado.

By the way, I am neither Japanese nor Okinawan. So I don't use kombu in dashi-related dishes. My mother simmers kombu with red beans to make a kind of delicious sweet dessert. On the eastern side of my coconut island, the locals collect a kind of seaweed that resembles mini grapes. We eat this kind of seaweed raw. Wash the seaweed clean then add lime, chillies and onions to make a seaweed salad. Scrumptious with fried fish.

If you like seaweed as much as I do, why not start looking for them in your local market? Variety makes constipation relief more enjoyable.

Transparent seaweed salad I bought from a local food bazaar, high in dietary fiber and fishy.

* Several countries have issued warnings about high level of inorganic arsenic, a kind of poison, in hijiki. Hijiki is quoted here as an example to demonstrate seaweed's value as a high fiber food but is not endorsed as a part of your constipation remedy, I don't want you to end up poisoned...

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