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We're hearing recently that we should eat more grains, whole-grain bread etc, to increase our fibre intake (for males, we should be getting 25 g fibre/day; some say 30 g/day). However grains are also energy-rich, so is there a danger in getting too fat if we try to increase our fibre intake from these sources. Therefore, busy bee that I am (or a retiree with time on my hands) I've been searching out the energy vs the fibre content of foods, with particular emphasis on those that are promoted as high fibre. A summary table is below, and I have attached the original xcel spreadsheet with the link to my main source, and the details of each food. If we assume that someone is getting 50% of their energy from (zero-fibre) animal protein and fat (the maximum recommended), and with a recommended intake for a sedentary male of 9900 kJ/day (2366 kcal), the we need 4850 kJ/day from other sources. The table below shows the energy intake if we eat enough of that food to get 25 g fibre/day. They are arranged in order of fibre/kJ ratio (higher numbers are more fibre for the energy content). Therefore someone eating exclusively foods from potato and below in the list (plus their animal protein and fats) will be eating too much energy, if they aim to get 25 g fibre/day (I've called this the high-energy group). Note that this is only a first approximation, as many of these plant foods contain protein and fat as well, so the proportion of animal products may be less; also people may choose to have less than their maximum recommended amount of protein and fat/day. There are a few interesting points to me: 1. Its interesting that at the top of the list are a lot of boring, traditional, vegetables, often rudely called "fart-food". 2. I have concentrated on wholemeal breads (info from the shelves of our local branch of Coles). Of these, only Lawsons Stoneground Wholemeal is well into the high-fibre list, and the other two wholemeal breads only just creep in. The "grains" breads dont. 3. Some food promoted as high fibre in fact falls into the high-energy/low-fibre group - this includes Special K and brown rice. I've included walnuts because they are often promoted as high in fibre, but their energy content/unit of fibre is massive - though I doubt if we'd eat enough of those to make much of a difference. I've included lettuce, to see what it comes out as, but I doubt if we eat enough of that either. I've omitted other foods that are promoted as high fibre (e.g. raspberries) if we're not likely to eat enough to make a difference. Orange juice is pretty much a disaster from the energy/fibre aspect. 4. I didnt include skins with potato because I dont recommend them - they accumulate the nasty chemicals that farmers and distributors spray on them. I was surprised that Coles baked beans in tomato sauce had such a high fibre/energy ratio. Obviously they've avoided adding too much gunk into the sauce. Also, dont take too much notice of small differences in numbers - there is a lot of variability in the original data from different sources. Below: high fibre group in green, high energy group in red. The attached spreadsheet also includes a copy of the table sorted by type (vegetables/grains/fruit etc). Food kJ/25g fibre Lettuce leaf 848 Cabbage (cooked) 1263 Baked beans in tomato sauce (Coles) 1341 Broccoli 1365 Navy beans (cooked) 1395 Brussels sprouts (cooked) 1452 Kale (cooked) 1463 Peas 1486 Carrot 1536 Lentils - whole green 1550 Tomatoes (red raw) 1563 Pumpkin (boiled) 1902 Kidney beans 2074 Apples 2271 Oranges 2330 Avocado 2500 Peaches 2717 Tomatoes (red, canned, stewed) 2725 Bread Stoneground Wholemeal (Lawsons) 2801 Pasta (wholemeal) 2905 Quick oats 3130 Cherries 3143 Banana 3615 Pinapple (fresh) 3732 Bread Farmhouse Wholemeal (Abbotts) 3739 Lentils - split red 3925 Bread Wholemeal (Helgas) 3968 Melon honeydew 4719 Potato (boiled, no skin) 5000 Bread Country Grains (Abbotts) 5250 Bread Mixed Grains (Helgas) 5778 Special K 6192 Brown rice (medium grain) 6514 Walnuts (shelled) 12716 Orange juice (canned, unsweetened, inc from concentrate) 16417 (files uploaded as xcel spreadsheet and pdf copy) Fibre energy content of foods.xlsx Fibre energy content of foods.pdf

In my evening of websurfing on a wet night, with wife away, and car being serviced so not able to get to ballet, I found a really interesting paper (Ratzlaff CR, Br J Sports Med. 2012 Aug;46(10):699-701), on energy expenditure for males and females as a function of age. It takes into account all forms of activity, and not just sport and work. Interesting results: 1. Most energy is spent in occupation and in the home, not in sport. 2. Over much of their adult lives, women have greater total energy expenditure than men (mainly due to work in the home). 3. There is a precipitous drop in expenditure the 50s and older, and the very small expenditure from late 60s onwards. 4. Sport and exercise do not promote osteoarthritis - injuries do. Since activity is known to promote health and longevity, the massive decline of activity in old age is something that we should be concerned about. If I manage, I'll add the salient graph from the paper here. Keep active! click to enlarge (A) Lifetime energy expenditure for occupation and sport by gender. (B ) Lifetime energy expenditure for household and sport by gender (in metabolic equivalent (MET)-hours per week). Adapted from Ratzlaff CR, Doerfl ing P, Steininger G, Koehoorn M, Cibere J, Liang M, et al. Lifetime trajectory of physical activity according to energy expenditure and joint force. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken) 2010;62:1452–9.