Fibre Facts
For children and adolescents, fibre recommendations vary with gender and age. Boys aged 9-13years require 24g and girls 20g per day. It is recommended that adults consume at least 30g per day.
Ways to boost fibre in your child’s diet:
Read labels to help you choose foods that contain fibre.
1. Very high in fibre or excellent source of fibre = at least 6g fibre per serve.
2. High fibre or good source of fibre = at least 3g per serve
3. Provides fibre or source of fibre = at least 1.5g of fibre / serve
Choose high fibre cereals and wholemeal bread, pasta or brown rice.
Include more fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds in your diet.
Add beans and lentils to your soups, casseroles or salads.
The cornerstones of good bowel health are:
Water, exercise and fibre.
Water: Make sure they drink enough water during the day. Remind them or give them a bottle so they know how much they are drinking.
Exercise: is an excellent way to get the bowels moving, so make sure they have a good run around each day. If they are really young, sometimes doing cycle legs exercises with them or a gentle clockwise tummy rub over the bowel area can help to move things along.
Fibre: They need around 20-25 grams of fibre a day. Here are some ideas of what 20 grams of fibre looks like…. Most people eat around half of this.
What foods are high in fibre?
Wholegrains like whole wheat, barley, oats and brown rice.
Fruit like apples, pears and dried apricots and peaches
Vegetables like potato and peas
Legumes (chick peas, kidney beans, etc) and nuts.
How can you boost fibre if your child is fussy?
Some fussy friendly ways to boost fibre include:
• Give them high fibre breakfast cereals
• If you bake, use wholemeal flour and wholegrains like barley. Choose recipes than contain fruit. Things like homemade muesli bars, banana bread or apple muffins are great.
• Buy high fibre bread (can be fortified white bread if they won’t eat wholemeal)
• Choose snacks that contain fruit or dried fruit
• Use brown rice instead of white or 50:50
• Grate extra vegetables into pasta sauces
• Add pureed legumes such as chick peas or lentils to soups, stews or casseroles.
Little Apple Cakes
These muffins are high in fibre and have no saturated fat. As your child becomes accustomed to less sweet food, reduce the sugar in the recipe to half a cup.
Prep time: 10 min
Cooking time: 15 min
Makes 12
Ingredients
1 cup wholemeal self raising flour
1 cup white self raising flour
2/3 cup raw sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp wheatgerm
1 cup coarsely grated apple, not peeled
1 lightly beaten egg
¾ cup cow or soy milk
½ cup vegetable oil
Method
Preheat oven to 180°C.
Sift flours.
Combine flours, sugar, cinnamon and wheatgerm.
Add the apple, egg, milk and oil and mix well.
Spoon mixture into patty pan cases or a greased little cake tray.
Bake for 15 minutes or until cooked through.
The cakes will keep for 5 days in an airtight container.
Recipe taken from Feeding Fussy Kids by Julie Maree Wood with Antonia Kidman, ABC Books/HarperCollins
