Eight Easy and Delicious Ways to Add Fiber to Your Diet

While the American Dietetics Association recommends that the average adult get between 20 and 35 grams of fiber in the diet per day, the association reports that the average American only gets about 14-15 grams per day.

Most of us know that fiber intake is important for health. The benefits of eating enough fiber range from having better gastrointestinal health to improving your heart health, since soluble fiber-such as the kind found in beans and oatmeal- is believed to lower your "bad" cholesterol and therefore lower your chances of coronary illness.

So, you may know you should be eating more fiber, but you can't figure out how to add more to your diet without eating something that tastes awful. The typical person with a low-fiber diet probably thinks of gritty fiber drinks or wheat germs as the only options. However, from tasty whole grain snack chips to fiber-rich dips, many foods that taste good are also high in fiber. Here are some easy tips for increasing your daily fiber intake.

One: Switch to a cereal that contains at least five grams of fiber. This will automatically get you nearly a quarter of the way to your daily minimum. You may associate high fiber cereal with the taste of cardboard, but that's not true these days. Check the nutritional information on a few cereals at your favorite supermarket, and you'll find tasty varieties such as frosted shredded wheat, raisin bran and Cracklin' Oat Bran typically have five or six grams of fiber per serving. Another option is to switch to oatmeal, and add in some raisins or dried fruit to get to that five gram minimum mark.

Two: Eat whole fruit instead of fruit juice. There's no need to completely eliminate fruit juice from your diet, but consider swapping out half of your glasses of juice for an orange or a pear. This move alone can add between two to six grams of fiber to your diet, depending on the type and size of the fruit.

Three: Gradually replace your white wheat pasta with whole grain or half-whole-grain products. You may think that whole-wheat pasta is tasteless, bitter or gritty. However, don't give up on it after one trial. Try a wide variety of brands and types, and you're likely to find one you like a lot. For instance, if you can't stand the texture of whole-grain pasta, try finding a variety made with half white flour and half wheat flour. These are generally very similar in texture to standard pastas. Whole grain lasagna noodles are another good option, since they are cooked for so long and combined with so many other ingredients. Typically, if your kids or your spouse are averse to trying whole grain noodles, they won't even notice the difference in lasagna. Barilla makes a whole line of "PLUS" pastas that are higher in fiber and the "good fats" that also taste good.

Four: Look for multi-grain or whole-wheat options for snack foods. For instance, some snack chips and crackers can be found in multi-grain varieties, and they're just as tasty (or more tasty) as the ones made from just corn or from white wheat flour. These aren't confined to the health food aisle, either. Tostitos recently came out with a multi-grain snack chip, for instance.

Five: Eat more hummus. Typical dips and sandwich spreads like mayonnaise and mustard have no fiber. Hummus, in contrast, is made from legumes and contains a modest amount of soluble fiber. Consider putting out hummus and whole grain crackers and baby carrots instead of potato chips and sour-cream based dip at your next party or spread some hummus on your sandwich instead of mayo, and you'll be adding two or more grams of fiber to your daily diet.

Six: Check out the trendy new "white wheat" breads. Many people love the taste and texture of white bread and find whole wheat breads bitter. White wheat bread has the taste and texture of white bread but similar fiber content (5 grams for 2 slices) to whole wheat or multi-grain breads.

Seven: Substitute veggie burgers for meat at least one meal per week. Meat, in addition to containing cholesterol, also has no fiber. Veggie burgers made from soy or other vegetable products typically have two or more grams of fiber per serving. Add half-whole-wheat buns, and you have an easy dinner with much higher fiber content than a typical burger on a white flour bun. Even if you're a confirmed carnivore, you're likely to find at least one type of vegetarian burger you like if you experiment with different brands and varieties.

Eight: Learn to love salads. If you associate salads with starvation diets and can't stand the typical diner salad with pale iceberg and sad tomato slices, you need to expand your ideas of how fantastic a salad can be. For a simple switch, start using romaine instead of iceberg and make sure you add in at least one other high-fiber but tasty addition such as chick peas or slices of carrot or fresh bell pepper. You can also make homemade taco salads by tossing greens with baked tortilla chips, reduced fat shredded cheese, vegetarian burger crumbles and a couple tablespoons of mild salsa.

One caution: if you plan to increase your fiber intake, do it slowly. It's a bad idea to go from 15 grams one day to 30 the next day. Changing the amount of fiber you eat drastically over a short period of time can cause gastrointestinal distress and will discourage you from keeping up with your high fiber plan. Instead, aim to increase your fiber intake by about three to five grams per week over several weeks.