Starting a higher fiber diet is the easy part. Keeping it up week after week is harder, and that is what this plan is about: a steady daily target, a spread of foods so no single one carries the load, and a dessert built on dates that adds a real amount of fiber to the day.
Know the target for everyone at the table
The NHS puts the adult target at 30g of fiber a day, and says adults are eating an average of only about 20g. Children need less, though the NHS still says they need more than they get now:
- 2 to 5-year-olds: about 15g a day
- 5 to 11-year-olds: about 20g
- 11 to 16-year-olds: about 25g
On average, children aged 11 to 18 get 16g a day. For them, the NHS suggests plenty of fruit, vegetables and starchy foods, with wholegrain versions and potatoes with the skins on where possible. A family plan can use the same meals for everyone and simply adjust portion size.
Spread it out instead of leaning on one food
The NHS makes a point that is easy to skip: get fiber from a variety of sources, because eating too much of one type of food may not give you a healthy balanced diet. A plan that relies on bran cereal alone, or on dates alone, misses that. Here is how some everyday foods compare, from USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy) figures per 100g:
| Food (per 100g) | Fiber | FDC record |
|---|---|---|
| Pistachios, raw | 10.6g | 170184 |
| Oats, dry | 10.1g | 173904 |
| Deglet Noor dates | 8.0g | 171726 |
| Lentils, boiled | 7.9g | 172421 |
| Chickpeas, boiled | 7.6g | 173757 |
| Medjool dates | 6.7g | 168191 |
| Walnuts | 6.7g | 170187 |
| Baked potato, flesh and skin | 2.2g | 170093 |
| Brown rice, cooked | 1.6g | 169704 |
Per 100g figures say nothing about portion size. The NHS adds that its own example figures are only illustrations, since the fiber in any food depends on how it is made or prepared and on how much of it you eat.
Swaps that last longer than a week
The changes most worth keeping are the ones you make once and then stop thinking about. The NHS list works well for that:
- a higher-fiber breakfast cereal or porridge
- wholemeal or granary bread, wholewheat pasta, bulgur wheat or brown rice
- potatoes with their skins on
- beans, lentils or chickpeas added to stews, curries and salads
- plenty of vegetables with meals, as a side or stirred into sauces, stews or curries
For snacks, the NHS suggests fresh fruit, vegetable sticks, rye crackers, oatcakes and unsalted nuts or seeds. Dried fruit is a different case. The NHS says it is sticky and can increase the risk of tooth decay, so it is better eaten as part of a meal, as dessert, than between meals.
A date and nut bake for dessert
This is the dish the page used to carry, tidied up. You need 40 pitted dates, 10 walnuts cut into quarters, 60g chopped walnuts, 2 eggs, 60g melted butter, 1 tablespoon of milk, 60g chopped pistachios and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon powder.
- Heat the oven to 180 degrees for 15 minutes.
- Put a walnut quarter inside each date where the stone was, and arrange the dates side by side in an ovenproof dish. Stacking a second row on top is fine.
- Mix one egg with the milk, pour it over the dates, and fill the gaps with the chopped walnuts so the top is even.
- Bake in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes, then take it out.
- Beat the second egg with a fork, pour it over, and bake for another 5 minutes at the same temperature.
- Pour the melted butter over the dates and finish with the pistachios and cinnamon.
How much fiber is in the tray? The recipe does not name a variety. If you use Deglet Noor, FoodData Central gives one pitted date as 7.1g, so 40 dates weigh about 284g and carry about 22.7g of fiber. The 60g of chopped walnuts add about 4.0g and the 60g of pistachios about 6.4g, using the raw pistachio figure. That is roughly 33g across the tray from those three ingredients, before counting the walnut quarters, whose weight the recipe does not give. Cut into eight pieces, each serving gives about 4g.
Medjool dates work too. They are large, very soft and rich, with a caramel taste, while Deglet Noor from Tunisia and Algeria is golden and semi-dry.
Check labels when you shop
Most pre-packaged foods carry a nutrition label on the side or back, and the NHS notes it can include how much fiber the food contains. The NHS line for a high-fiber food is 6g or more in every 100g. By that test, both dates in the table pass, Medjool only just, while the brown rice and baked potato do not. The NHS still names brown rice and potatoes with their skins on among its fiber swaps.
For a lunch built on the same idea, see the comeback of the healthy lunch. This is general food information, not medical advice.
More about this site is on the About Us page and the contact page.