Robert Ebsen
It started a few weeks ago. I was at my daughter’s house and tasted one of her ubiquitous breakfast bars, a Fiber One Streusel Bar. It was good. And it was fiber healthy.
Today I thought about those bars and decided to find some for my daughter and some for me. My daughter said she thought she found them at the Dollar Store.
No Dollar Store nearby, so I went to our local Dollar Tree and then to the 99 Cent Store. No luck.
I went to Vons and to Gelson’s. Neither stocked the streusel bars. So I bought the Fiber One Brownies and the Fiber One Cinnamon Coffee Cake.
When I got home I googled the streusel bars. I found that Wal-Mart carried them for a good price. Off I went. I was on a crusade.
Success. Yay Wal-Mart. I bought two large boxes of Strawberry Streusel, and the last two large boxes of Blueberry Streusel. At $4.99 for a box of 10 bars, I had a good deal.
Before leaving for my daughter’s this afternoon, I packed a variety of Fiber One bars. Of course, my daughter said that I could always eat as many of her bars as I wanted, and that I didn’t have to bring her any.
For those of you a bit older, as I am, you likely have felt the benefits of those extra grams of fiber each day.
A bowl of my Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal (10 grams of fiber), a fruit smoothie (about 17 grams*), a tablespoon of Metamucil (3 grams), a Fiber One bar (5 grams), plus any fibrous foods I eat at mealtimes, provides more than the 30 RDA grams of fiber for men my age.
How much fiber do you need? The National Institute of Health recommends that adult men younger than 50 years old get 38 grams of fiber each day, while men older than 50 only need about 30 grams.
Women under age 50 should get 25 grams of fiber, while women over 50 only need 21 grams. Most people get an average of 15 grams per day, so, at 35+ grams, I am doing okay.
Here’s a breakdown of the fiber content of this morning’s smoothie:
Cup of strawberries 3.6 g; Half cup of blackberries 3.7 g; Half cup of blueberries 1.8 g; Banana 3.1 g.; Apple 3.4 g.; Two cups almond milk 2g
Mr. Ebsen may be contacted at robertebsen@hotmail.com