How to increase your child’s fibre with easy everyday foods – Food For Kids Podcast episode 50

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. Today's episode is quite specific. We have a couple of episodes coming up about children's digestive systems with two fabulous dietitians. One's going to be talking about the gut microbiome and what we need to do to help it as parents and one talking about tummy troubles and how to find out what's causing them and how to help our children with them.

But because both of those interviews cover the fact that we need to make sure our children are having adequate fibre in their diet, I thought I would preempt them and give a short episode with lots of practical ideas for how to get fibre into our kids' food. So you don't hear those episodes and think, I don't know where to start with that. Because so much content around food online is quite fancy and aspirational, and let's be honest, quite a bit of it is pretty impractical or expensive or a bit ambitious for a Wednesday night after hockey practice, I wanted to give you some pretty normal and everyday ideas for fibre for your kids that might be more helpful.

As you know, I don't tend to go into the dietetic side of things on this show, I leave that to my amazing guests, so I'm not going to go into loads of detail about how fibre works in the body today, but basically there are different types of fibre, they have different effects on the body, some help us to make decent poos, others support our gut bacteria to help us get more out of the food we eat, and some help us to either absorb more or less of certain things and to carry some things out of the body more effectively. So fibre really is doing a lot of things, not just with their digestion.

Fibre is only found in plant sources, so although we are obviously bombarded with lots of information about protein right now, and that's obviously important too, we mustn't let it distract us from making sure we have enough fibre in our diets and you can absolutely balance or combine the two in quite ordinary and affordable food. So coming up are some ideas for some family-friendly foods that will help you and your children get more fibre into those busy days.

For all of these, bear in mind that children need around 15 grams of fibre at preschool age, so between two and five years old, about 20 grams at primary school, between age six and eleven-ish, about 25 grams at secondary school up to 16 ish and then when they're 17 or 18 and about full size in their bodies they move to adult guidelines which are about 30 per day. So I will get you some more information about the guidelines in the dietitians interviews but just remember that ballpark of 15 to 25 grams during childhood so that when I mention how much some foods have you can see that quite everyday things can really add up. I will say a bunch of approximate numbers as I go and obviously these are all ballpark numbers and different portion sizes but they are there just to help you think as you're listening how you can combine those ordinary things to count up to that daily target of 15 to 25 without having to buy anything that's like fancy or has loads of health claims on the label.

So here we go with their list of foods and fibre.

The first thing we always think of when we think of fibre is whole grains like bran cereal or wholemeal bread. And those things are obviously great sources but not all children are keen. But don't write off all breads in your head just because they're not brown breads.

At the time of recording Warburton's Wholemeal gives you nearly 3g of fibre in one slice, but their 50-50 brand still gives you over 1.5g per slice and even their soft white is nearly a gram per slice.  So obviously shoot for the highest fibre bread you can or mix and match together but don't be down on yourself if white bread is the only bread that's accepted right now.

Also have a think if you can include higher fibre bread things into different ways than just toast or sandwiches because the texture and colour is more obvious in toast or sandwiches. So for example, your child might only like white pitas for sandwiches, although to be fair that's still clocking in about 2g for an average supermarket owned brand white pita. But if you make pita pizzas for a weeknight tea, would they be bothered if it's a wholemeal pitta for the base because the toppings are distracting and tasty? Wholemeal pitas pack in a whopping 5g per pita, so that's a quarter of the way there just for one pita pizza. Even if they only go for tomato and cheese on top, if you whack a handful of potato wedges on the side, preferably with their skins on, and maybe a few carrot sticks on the side, you're getting up to about eight grams just in that one meal.

The second thing we think of for high-fibre is usually cereal. And while your head might go to an image of wellness people eating bran fibre in yoga pants, don't underestimate the fibre in more typically child-friendly cereals too. Yes, a 30 gram bowl of Kellogg's bran flakes does have over 5 grams of fibre in it, but two Weetabix has nearly 4 grams. Kellogg's multigrain shapes and Oatibix flakes, both have just under 2.5 grams per serving and even chocolate flavoured weetos have just over 2 grams.

So take a look at the cereals that your child already likes and look at its overall balance of nutrition and enjoyment, but don't think it automatically has no fibre just because it's not dark brown.

When it comes to snacks, if your child likes crunchy things, especially in after school snacks, think about adding in whole grain crackers or oat cakes alongside some dips or other picky bits. You might think that you need to go for a Riveta to get higher fibre and they are definitely great if you like them, but they have just under half a gram per cracker and Tesco multigrain crackers have 0.3, so three of those and you're nearly at a gram. And if your child really likes the plain cream crackers, Jacob's do a higher fibre one with half a gram per cracker. So if you pair three of those small Tesco's multi-grain crackers or two of the Jacob ones with a couple of tablespoons of shop-bought hummus and a sliced up apple and you're getting around 4g of fibre just in that after school snack plate.

Other sources of fibre in crunchy snack foods are things like popcorn at about a gram per cup, oat cakes at about 1g each, even things like hobnobs can add in up to a gram each. So build your balanced snack alongside whatever fruit or veg or proteiny things you like and know that even the savoury snacky bit is contributing.

Okay, so speaking of fruit and veg, this is where a lot of surprising levels of fibre can come in. You might automatically think of fibrous veg like kale or lentils, but you might be surprised at how much there is in more familiar foods for children. For example, a serving of 20 raspberries brings in amazing 4 grams just by themselves and your child's body doesn't care if they're fresh ones on a snack or frozen ones in a smoothie on top of their yoghurt or even squished into jam to shove on their toast.

A whole avocado is around 10 grams which means that dipping into a couple of tablespoons of mashed up guac is going to net a couple of grams as well as the healthy fats it's bringing to the table.

Dried apricots are not far off from a gram each and pears are surprisingly high in fibre with a medium one being around 4 grams. Not packing in quite as much but still contributing a lot and really easy for children to accept are things like strawberries, about 8-10 in a portion or an apple or an orange or a medium banana which are all around the 3 gram level depending on their size. So you can see that basically all of the fruits that your child likes will be contributing to their daily fibre intake. So all those little bites of this and that during the day definitely add up.

Vegetables too are obviously a great contributor with family favourites all helping, whether it's carrots, green beans, broccoli, sweet corn, cabbage, whichever combo you choose to add on the side of the dinner plate, they will add a couple of grams or more. Peas are an absolute hero at 5-6 grams per 100 grams, meaning that a primary aged child is getting about 3-4 grams just from a portion of peas, and yes, frozen ones still count.

And your humble potatoes aren't just sitting there being delicious either. The average portion for a primary age child on their dinner is going to add in about three to four grams of fibre and more if the skins are on like a jacket potato or wedges. So you can see how over the course of the day, these spoonfuls and small bites are definitely all helping.

And lastly, thinking about those peas, the other brilliant source of fibre that we should all be trying to eat as often as possible for lots of reasons is legumes like peas, beans and lentils. They are a powerhouse of nutrition in general, but they packed with fibre. Half a can of something like chickpeas, black beans or lentils are going to get you between 6 and 9 grams of fibre. Which is great if you eat those, keep it up. But if you're listening to that and thinking, well we don't eat many of those and my kids would hate them, think of ways to get them into things that they do like. For example, add a can of green lentils into your bolognese sauce, they will make the meat go further which makes it a bit cheaper and that ratio won't overpower the sauce. Add a cup of dried red lentils and a cup of water or stock into more or less any reddish soup like carrots, sweet potato or squash or tomato and you won't be able to tell once it's blitzed up. Or have them in the slightly processed things that we already know we like, like hummus or refried beans spread in tacos. Or you can even make some of those cute brownie or blondie recipes online using chickpeas or black beans. We are going to have a whole episode on eating more legumes coming up, so I won't go into more detail now, but just remember that that tablespoon of hummus or the sprinkle of red lentils in the curry really are helping your fibre intake.

And the British favourite of tinned baked beans are also a quiet hero in this department with about 8 grams in a half tin. So your beans on toast could be 10 grams all by itself.

So I hope that gave you some ideas of how much ordinary foods that we can all fit into an everyday breakfast, snack or dinner can us to meet that 15 to 25 grams target and 30 grams for ourselves.

And don't worry if you're listening to this and thinking, well, I'm getting nowhere near because you're not alone. Most adults don't hit their recommendations, so don't beat yourself up. But if you're listening to this, you're obviously someone who's trying to get their child to eat well. So just keep chipping in and adding in bits at a time and you can soon see that over time these 1g here and 1g there additions can really build up to a happy gut full of fibre.

I hope this was useful and that you're looking forward to the episodes I mentioned on gut health and also the legume one. I hope to see you on the next episode and in the meantime, happy fibre-filled eating!

00:00 Introduction

01:12 Fibre is important

02:08 How much fibre do kids need?

03:12 Fibre in bread

04:35 Fibre in cereal

05:16 Fibre in snack foods

06:21 Fibre in fruits

07:33 Fibre in vegetables

08:15 Fibre in legumes

09:46 Summary and outro