Indigestible Food Components

Soybeans, sorghum, and plantains are also sometimes eaten as staple foods. Soybeans are used for animal feed, although humans also consume them. Sorghum is good when food is needed in climates that are otherwise inhospitable. Plantains are mainly grown in tropical areas of Africa and Latin America.

DIGESTIBLE AND INDIGESTIBLE FOODS

Foods can be described as being digestible or indigestible, although most foods have components of both. You might need to deal with people who need a highly digestible diet and those who don't. Digestible foods are those that break down easily and are absorbed readily into your system. People need to eat easily digestible foods when their GI tract is suffering and needs some kind of a break. This might be true with ulcers, gastroesophageal reflux disease, nausea, and vomiting, or irritable bowel syndrome. People after surgery also need a bland and easily digested diet.

You can tell if a food is easily digested if it is low in fiber. This is because fiber is the component of food least likely to be digested. A low fiber diet is also called a low residue diet. You will hear much more about this later. Fruits and vegetables tend to be high in fiber unless you cook them. If you make a juice out of a fruit or vegetable, it will also be low in fiber but will still have plenty of nutrients.

Foods considered low in fiber include any type of cooked vegetable, dairy products, cooked fruits like applesauce, bananas, white bread or other food made with white flour, hot cereals like cream of wheat, creamy peanut butter, puddings, lean meat, eggs, and most cooked soups. Fried foods are not necessarily indigestible; they are just difficult for many people with digestive problems to eat.

Other foods to avoid when trying to eat a highly digestible diet include meat with casings like hot dogs or sausages, heavily processed meats, beans and lentils, carbonated beverages, peanuts and nuts, highly acidic fruit, whole spices, full-fat dairy products, seeds, and raisins or other dried fruits.

INDIGESTIBLE FOOD COMPONENTS

Food that is indigestible for everyone is generally some type of fiber. Remember that fiber is any carbohydrate that the body does not have enzymes to break down and absorb into the body. Digestible carbohydrates can be simple carbohydrates or starches, which are long chains of simple sugars that we do have enzymes to break down.

For some people, foods containing lactose or milk sugar are indigestible. There are hereditary factors that determine if a person can tolerate lactose or not. You will hear more about this later. Some indigestible carbohydrates get digested instead by the gut bacteria, which make methane or hydrogen gas as an end product of their metabolism. This is where we get flatulence from.

Fiber is still healthy for you because it can prevent things like heart disease, colon cancer, and type II diabetes. There are actually many types of fiber we cannot digest, including the fiber that comes from mushrooms and from most plants. You will learn that there are two different types of fiber. There is soluble fiber, which helps prevent cholesterol absorption, among other things, and in soluble fiber, which helps aid digestion. This partial list tells you some common types of fiber and where they come from:

• Cellulose - comes from cereals, fruits, and vegetables

• Chitin - this comes from mushrooms and the shells of crustaceans

• Hemicellulose – this comes from some other cereals, such as bran and legumes

• Hexoses - this comes from wheat and barley

• Pentoses - this comes from Rye and oats

• Lignin - this comes from fruit stones, garden beans, and some cereals

Water-soluble dietary fibers include psyllium, which is a type of hemicellulose inulin, pectin, found in the skin of fruits and vegetables, raffinose, found in legumes, and alginates, which are a number of substances found in algae.