Use Bran to Save Money and Add Fiber to Your Diet

Unprocessed wheat bran is one of the easiest and most beneficial additions to a healthy diet. You can use bran to add dietary fiber to your diet by adding it to your family's normal, daily recipes. Buying unprocessed wheat bran to add to day to day foods is more economical than paying for processed, packaged snacks with fiber additives. Bran is naturally fat free, sugar free and cholesterol free with high amounts of niacin and iron.

The average adult needs between 20 and 25 grams of fiber in his or her daily diet (based on a 2,000-2,500 calorie diet). One-quarter cup of unprocessed what bran provides seven grams of dietary fiber. Bran comes from the outer coating on a wheat kernel. It is the light, brown shell surrounding the wheat's endosperm and wheat germ.

Fiber may be either soluble or insoluble and both are necessary to maintain good health and prevent diseases such as colon cancer. Processed flours and refined grains, like those found in over 90 percent of pastas, breads and packaged snacks, become soft and clumpy when mixed with water. This paste-like substance settles in your colon, or intestines, and coats the interior walls. Other foods slide past, allowing the sludge to remain and build up in your colon, which leads to colon cancer, other diseases, and irregular bowel movements.

Soluble fibers absorb water in the foods you eat to plump up. These plump particles build into larger waste masses, instead of sludge, to push through your colon. Insoluble fibers, like wheat bran, are not digested by the human digestive tract. Instead these fibers, called "roughages," act like mini brooms to sweep out the walls of your colon and intestinal tract. The paper-thin bran husk is one of the best available sources for insoluble fiber.

Traditionally, packaged bread products like bran muffins and bran breads have been considered the "healthy" carbohydrates alternatives to donuts and other muffins and morning breads. However, packaged bran muffins sold in most grocery stores and bakeries are just as unhealthy as their fattening blueberry or chocolate chip muffin counterparts. Commercial muffins are usually made with whole fats and milks and their base is that processed, bleached white flour that clogs up the colon. The amount of bran used is very minimal and rarely enough to counteract the unhealthy fats and carbohydrates used.

Instead of buying prepackaged bran muffins, purchase unprocessed wheat bran and unprocessed whole wheat flour at your grocery store and work them into your favorite muffin recipe. Use about three cups of wheat bran and replace half the normal white flour with wheat flour for a healthy, fiber-loaded muffin. You can apples, raisins, nuts, or even chocolate chips for extra flavor. Making your own batch of muffins will yield two to three times the product of purchasing commercially packaged bran muffins, which saves money and your colon. Bran dinner rolls, bran cookies and bran raisin breads are also fiber-rich carbohydrate alternatives for your family meals.

For more sneaky ways to work bran into your daily diet, consider these ideas:

Use wheat bran as an economical meat extender. Work a cup or two of wheat bran into your ground beef mixture for meatloaf or hamburgers. You can use less meat, which saves money, and also sneak heart-healthy doses of insoluble fiber into your family's normal meal. Even picky kids, or husbands, will probably not notice the fiber addition to their favorite ground beef meal.

Sprinkle a half a cup of wheat bran into packaged dinners, such as Hamburger Helper or other skillet meals. Again, bran acts as a meat extender to make a little ground beef go a lot further while making a quick, fattening meal a little healthier.

Sprinkle a few teaspoons of bran onto your kids favorite sugary cereals or your oatmeal. Most kids, and adults, do not enjoy whole grain or bran fiber cereals. But adding just a few teaspoons onto a kids cereal gives your kids a few grams of needed fiber, which also helps their breakfast "stick to their ribs" a little longer.

Mix a few teaspoons of wheat bran in with a pulpy orange juice and your kids will never notice the added texture.