10 foods that help you go!

Eating fibre-rich foods such as legumes, and vegetables promotes healthy, regular bowel movements, they help you poop. And there are two types:

— Soluble fibre. Absorbs water and forms a gel-like consistency, which helps soften stool and make it easier to pass. It may also help reduce blood cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

— Insoluble fibre. Passes through your digestive tract intact and helps add bulk to stool. It may also help stool pass through more easily and frequently.

Including the following foods can encourage healthy movements if they are not really happening regularly. Nothing urgent. Nothing painful and also reduce issues like bloating and gas.

Coconut kefir

Coconut kefir is a fermented beverage that contains probiotics, the good bacteria that protect and heal your gut, which is also a part of your immune system. Probiotics can help increase regularity, improve stool consistency, and reduce intestinal transit time, so faster poops.

How to incorporate kefir into your diet— Kefir makes the perfect base for smoothies or salad dressings. Or you can try making a probiotic-rich parfait using kefir and topping it with fruit, flaxseed, or oats.

Black beans

Most varieties of beans contain fairly decent quantities of soluble and insoluble fibre, which are wonderful for making bowel movements frequent. You don’t need a lot. A half-cup serving of black beans will provide you with close to 7 grams of fibre.

How to incorporate black beans into your diet—batch cook yourself some beans and add them to your soups and salads or refry them for tacos throughout the week! In the health section of the supermarket and health food stores, you will also find black bean noodles or spaghetti that you can use in place of wheat pasta!

Kumara

Kumara are good for you, period. They contain an abundance of vitamins and minerals, as well as fibre. Just one contains 3.8 grams of fibre!

How to incorporate kumara into your diet—fried or roasted, use where you would otherwise eat a potato. Smash them to create fillings for nachos and enchiladas. Make a dip. So many ways. Go to Pinterest!

Lentils

These edible pulses are packed with fibre. A half-cup serving of cooked lentils contains 7.8 grams of fibre. It is thought that lentils can increase the production of butyric acid in the colon, which encourages movement in your digestive tract to promote the need to go.

How to incorporate lentils into your diet—it is super easy to make lentils the base of soups and salads. And if you don’t have time to cook them from scratch, keep a few cans in your pantry for easy weeknight dinners!

Chia seeds

Chia seeds are one of the most fibre-dense foods available, consisting of about 28% fibre by weight. Just 2 ½ tablespoons provide just under 9.7 grams of fibre. For increased digestibility, soak your chia seeds in water or oat milk—the seeds become gel-like. They can absorb up to 15 times their weight in water, allowing for easier elimination.

How to incorporate chia seeds into your diet—make chia puddings, add chia seeds to your oatmeal and smoothies. Sprinkle them on your peanut butter toast.

Ground flaxseed

In addition to various other health benefits, flaxseed has a high fibre content and promotes bowel regularity. Reaching your 25 to 30 grams of fibre daily is a sum of all parts, and a tablespoon of flaxseed will provide around 2 grams of fibre, helping you get that bit closer to your fibre goal. Ground is best because it is more readily absorbed. And another small study in people with chronic constipation found that eating flaxseed flour with meals for 4 weeks reduced the participants’ symptoms of constipation.

How to incorporate flaxseed into your diet—add ground or whole flaxseed into your overnight oats, yoghurt and smoothies, and top your salads with a seed mix that uses flax, kind of like za'atar.

Avocados

Who doesn’t love avocados? A whole avocado will nourish you with 10 grams of fibre, have half for breakfast, and add the other half to your lunch. Easy. That is a third of your daily fibre requirements.

How to incorporate avocados into your diet—Very versatile. On toast, obviously, smashed, add them to bread in place of mayo or butter, blend into smoothies, and top all your salads with avocado. Make guac.

Oatmeal

Again, other popular food, oatmeal, overnight oats and savoury oats, are all big in the health food space. Oats have long been recognised as a heart-health food. A cup of oats contains 8 grams of fibre, both the soluble and insoluble kinds.

How to incorporate oats into your diet—daily oatmeal, baked or overnight, make bread or cookies.

Popcorn

In a serving of 3 cups of air-popped popcorn, you’ll get 3.6 grams of fibre. You’ll also, as with all these high-fibre foods, decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease! Snack your way to better health!

How to incorporate popcorn into your diet—buy the kernels and pop it yourself. Then stream a movie. Use olive oil or coconut oil. Both give flavour without the need for extra fat; just add a little salt.

Turnips

Do you eat turnips? Maybe overlooked, one small turnip contains 1.1 grams of fibre, not massive, but something when added to a meal.
 
How to incorporate turnips into your diet—Roasted, in salads, pureed into risotto, make turnip fries. Yum!