“Fibre isn’t sexy. But the science of fibre truly is.”
Fibre has an image problem. Say the word out loud and most people think poo, farts, bloating — maybe your grandmother’s cereal box. Hardly the stuff of food joy.
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But fibre isn’t just about your bowels. It’s touching your gut microbiome, your heart, chronic inflammation, your weight, your blood sugar, your brain and your body’s own detox systems — often all at once, from the same humble, chewy part of real food that’s quietly disappeared from most of our plates.
In this special episode, I take you inside my book, The Fibre Factor (Penguin, out now), chapter by chapter — the science, the surprises, and a taste of what’s waiting for you in each one.
In This Episode
· Why fibre vanished from our plates over the last century — and just how big the global “fibre famine” really is
· Why “fibre” isn’t one thing: meeting the very different characters in the fibre line-up, from psyllium to resistant starch to beta-glucan
· MACs and short-chain fatty acids: how your gut microbes turn fibre into butyrate, propionate and acetate — and why that matters for nearly every system in your body
· What actually happens when fibre doesn’t agree with you, and how to work with your gut instead of against it
· The real mechanism behind fibre and cholesterol — and how much you actually need
· The gut–inflammation connection, and why it underpins so many chronic diseases
· How fibre triggers your own GLP-1 and PYY release
· What a genuinely normal blood sugar curve looks like — and where continuous glucose monitors can mislead healthy people
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