Constipation home remedies include consuming papaya, cucumber, and fiber-rich grain-like millets are great facilitators of stool evacuation. Papaya and cucumber can be consumed fresh, while millet can be converted into bread.
Dietary fiber, found in fruits, vegetables, and other food types, is not digested in the small intestine. These, undigested, pass through the small intestine and reach the large intestine and colon. Fiber bulks up food. These facilitate waste movement down the large intestine helping in the convenient evacuation.
Fiber-rich food includes wholegrain food products like bread, breakfast cereal, and pasta. Then we have fruits like berries, melons, oranges, and pears. Vegetables like broccoli, carrots, sweet corn, peas, beans, pulses, nuts, and seeds, and potatoes with skin, are rich in fiber. In plants, the woody fiber is generally lignin.
Oats and barley contain beta-glucan fiber. Three grams and more of it, when consumed daily, is said to help reduce cholesterol levels. Dietary fiber helps reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and bowel cancer.
The UK government nutrition agency recommends using 30 grams of fiber per day for adults over 17 years. The American Dietetic Association recommends using 25 grams of dietary fiber for adult women and 38 grams for adult men.
The average dietary fiber intake in the US these days is 15 grams daily, much lower than this recommendation. Consuming more than 25 grams per day of dietary fiber reduces obesity (Howarth et al., 2001).
Dietitians recommend consuming a fiber-rich diet for individuals suffering from constipation and a low-fiber diet when afflicted by diarrhea. High-fiber diets provide bulk, are more satiating, and have been observed to lower body weights. Consumers, therefore, are turning to fiber supplements and bulk laxatives as additional fiber sources. Such a diet will form part of constipation home remedies. Foods with low glycemic index are recommended for people suffering from Type2 diabetes.
Additional reading references:
Nutrition Facts- a guide to good health