Dee Sargeant
If fibre were a celebrity, it would be the one everyone claims to know, yet somehow never invites to the party. And that’s a shame—because a startling number of people still can’t get close to the recommended 30g a day, leaving digestion, energy, and even mood wobbling like a shopping trolley with a dodgy wheel.
The good news: upping your daily fibre doesn’t require a life of joyless salads or chewing twigs in the park. With guidance from leading nutritionists Cassandra Barns and Marilyn Glenville, here are five genuinely doable ways to give your gut what it’s been politely asking for.
1) Fall back in love with oats
Oats are the dependable mate who turns up early, brings snacks, and never makes it weird. They’re filling, low-cost, and endlessly adaptable—and they deliver both soluble and insoluble dietary fibre, the sort of tag-team duo your digestive system can really get behind.
Regular porridge oats or oat-based muesli make breakfast easy; and when the snack gremlins start whispering at 3 pm, swap biscuits and crisps for oatcakes.
Nutritionist Cassandra Barns says, “The oats in oatcakes provide gentle fibre, which not only helps us stay regular, but also ‘feeds’ the friendly bacteria in the gut. These bacteria then make a substance called butyrate, which helps keep the lining of our gut healthy.”
That’s the thing about fibre: it’s not just “roughage”—it’s renovation work for the whole neighbourhood.
2) Choose high-fibre swaps you’ll actually stick with
The best diet isn’t the one that looks heroic on Monday—it’s the one you can live with on Thursday. Instead of cutting out your favourites and sulking into a sad rice cake, try high-fibre alternatives that feel like upgrades rather than compromises.
The “free-from” aisle isn’t just for coeliacs anymore, and plenty of brands have learned that “healthy” shouldn’t taste like cardboard wrapped in regret. Tobia Teff, for instance, uses teff—an ancient grain and the smallest of the bunch—as the backbone of their range.
Their Organic Teff Flakes can be used like porridge or eaten cold like cereal, and they’re packed with fibre while also being gluten-free, vegan-friendly and a source of protein (tobiateff.co.uk). Consider it a stealthy way to raise fibre without rewriting your whole menu.
3) Track what you eat (and how you feel before you eat it)
Before we even get into adding more fibre-rich foods, it’s worth doing the simplest thing in modern health: collect a little data. Keep a food diary for a week. Nothing obsessive—just honest. Patterns appear quickly when you see them written down, especially if you add one extra detail: your mood right before you eat.
Because many “bad choices” aren’t hunger—they’re boredom, anxiety, stress, or that weird emotional void that opens when the inbox pings again. Top UK nutritionist Marilyn Glenville explains: “By keeping a food diary you may discover that there are certain foods that trigger [digestion issues] or it could be the time of day which makes them worse, for instance when you are tired or you may find your symptoms are linked to regularly stressful aspects of your week”.
Translation: fibre goals get easier when you understand what’s steering the ship.
4) Make breakfast non-negotiable
When you wake up, you’ve usually been fasting for at least eight hours, and your body does what bodies do: it produces cortisol to get you up and running. Completely normal—until you stretch it to lunchtime on coffee and chaos.
Eating breakfast helps stabilise blood sugar and can reduce the mid-morning crash that sends people stampeding towards low-fibre pastries. And once you leave the house, the easy options tend to be the beige ones.
A fibre-friendly breakfast doesn’t need to be fancy: avocado on toast is simple and legitimately effective—half an avocado contains around 6g of fibre. Beans are another strong move. And porridge has earned its reputation; it keeps you full, supports digestion, and sets up the rest of your day like a good warm-up before a round.
5) Treat self-care as part of your fibre plan
Here’s the curveball: fibre isn’t just about food. Stress plays its own mischievous role in digestion—and when you’re frazzled, your body prioritises survival mode over smooth gut function. That’s when the comfort foods show up: sugary, carby, fatty, and usually low on fibre.
As Barns puts it: “When we’re feeling stressed, digestion is not our body’s main priority…. It’s therefore important to manage our overall stress levels, whether it’s taking some time out from work or using practices such as meditation. And if you’re at work, don’t eat at your desk – get away into a more calming environment,” explains Barns.
“In general, any gentle or moderate exercise – especially something that you enjoy – can be helpful for your digestion. Movement stimulates the gut, and doing something you enjoy will help lower your stress levels. As well as being relaxing, certain yoga positions or asanas can be helpful for encouraging digestion and relieving problems such as bloating and constipation. Perfect to wind down in the evening if you’ve had a stressful day”.
In other words: you can eat all the fibre in the world, but if you’re inhaling lunch at your keyboard like it’s an emergency drill, your gut might not send thank-you notes.
The takeaway: small changes, big fibre wins
A few simple tweaks—oats over ultra-processed snacks, smarter swaps, a short food diary, a proper breakfast, and stress-lowering routines—can make a noticeable difference to your fibre intake and overall health. And it’s worth it: a diet high in fibre is linked to lower blood pressure, longevity and even mood.
So start small. Start today. Your gut has been patient long enough.
