My favorite high-fiber meals? I’m glad you asked. Breakfast, lunch, and supper are my favorite meals. I love them all – and I love filling up with high-fiber foods! I ate with a couple friends recently, and Steve couldn’t believe how much I ate. He asked, “How do you stay so thin when you eat so much?” “The secret,” I said, “is that I can eat platefuls of great food as long as I go with high-fiber choices – and that’s easy.” It’s easy because I love them all. Here were my meals on a typical day recently.
Breakfast: Double serving of oatmeal with 1/4 cup raisins and 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed, topped with 1 cup of mixed blueberries and sliced strawberries, and 1 medium sliced banana plus 1/4 cup almond milk. On the side I had 3 large prunes, a large slice of whole wheat toast with low-sugar raspberry jam, and a mug of chamomile tea (no sugar or milk.) My appetizer was an 8-ounce glass of high-pulp orange juice.
Lunch: Two bowlfuls of great vegan chili with a side salad plate of raw spinach leaves with cashews and raisins mixed in. I had a medium apple for dessert.
Supper: A double serving of quinoa and brown rice mix, 1/2 cup of beet greens, 1/2 beet, 2/3 cup mixed cauliflower and broccoli, 1 medium cut-up carrot, and 10 asparagus spears on my main plate. My salad was 2 cups of cut-up romaine lettuce and celery sticks, green and red bell pepper slices, radish slices, sliced salad onions, sliced cucumber, small broccoli florets, sliced tomatoes, and sliced avocado, all seasoned with a tablespoon of aged Balsamic vinegar. Dessert was a small bowl of cut-up sweet Summer Kiss melon.
Comments: I look forward to all my meals, but I especially love breakfast. I fix my own breakfast and enjoy this breakfast almost every day of the year. Prep time is only 15-20 minutes. Aside from pleasure, it gives me 20 grams of fiber and 22 grams of protein to start my day.
Lunch is my lightest meal. Sometimes I have a large 100% whole wheat sandwich, with chickpea hummus as the spread, sprinkled with walnut pieces and covered with raw spinach leaves. It’s a great sandwich. Other days I have crunchy organic peanut butter as the spread, topped with sliced banana. To finish, I’ll usually have an apple, pear, mango, kiwi, or whatever citrus fruit is in season. Many days I’ll have a glass of Carol’s blended smoothie to top lunch off. That’s a bit of nutritional paradise by itself! Lunch typically gives me 10-12 grams of fiber and 20-22 grams of protein.
Supper is the main meal that Carol and I prepare together. I usually cook the veggies while she fixes a great salad every night. We have cooked kale or collard greens almost every night, along with two or three other veggies. The main entrée could be baked potato or sweet potato, baked acorn or butternut squash, stir-fry veggies on brown rice, or something similar. Prep time is 30-60 minutes as a rule. Whatever we choose, it’s always good and its always filling. We may have some kind of fruit for dessert if we still have any room for it. (All these high-fiber meals are both filling and satisfying. I rarely want any kind of snack between meals.) Our suppers give me 20-25 grams of fiber and 25-30 grams of protein. This adds up to over 50 grams of fiber and 70-75 grams of high-quality protein every day.
As a final comment, I don’t expect or encourage anyone to jump into this kind of eating pattern overnight. (After all, I’ve grown into this pattern over a period of 80 years!) Still, this shows that a high-fiber diet can be both practical and delicious!
