Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

A stealth health approach to dietary fibre

Nature Food volume 4, pages 5–6 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Average dietary fibre intakes have increased little in the past twenty years in many countries, including the USA1. Multi-million-dollar campaigns promoting fruits, vegetables, whole grains and other foods high in fibre have delivered only small changes in diets2, and consumers have not changed from traditional staples to whole-grain options3. UK millers report that consumption of whole-wheat bread has actually declined over the past decade (P. Shewry, personal communication). In the US, white flour, which is lower in fibre than whole-wheat flour, accounts for nearly 40% of the fibre intake4. We believe that as motivating consumers to change food choices has proven difficult, changing food itself — a so-called stealth health approach — could be a useful strategy to increase fibre in the foods people choose to eat.

Socioeconomic status, education, accessibility, nutrition, tradition, ethnic and cultural preferences all inform food choice. But the most important food attributes are sensory — colour, texture and taste — and these can be influenced by food chemistry. Consumers recognize that whole wheat bread appears and tastes different to white bread.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Dietary Intake of Foods and Nutrients by Country (Global Dietary Database, 11 October 2022); https://go.nature.com/3XmbW0R

  2. Han, S., Wu, L., Wang, W., Li, N. & Wu, X. Nutrients 11, 2617 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Ahluwalia, N., Herrick, K. A., Terry, A. L. & Hughes, J. P. Contribution of Whole Grains to Total Grains Intake Among Adults Aged 20 and Over: United States, 2013–2016 (National Center for Health Statistics, 2019); https://go.nature.com/3EPOe63

  4. Kranz, S., Dodd, K. W., Juan, W. Y., Johnson, L. K. & Jahns, L. Nutrients 9, 153 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Hazard, B. et al. Nat. Food 1, 475–480 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Shewry, P. R. & Hey, S. J. Food Energy Secur. 4, 178–202 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. High Fibre White Bread Inches Closer (Rothamsted Research, 25 April 2022); https://go.nature.com/3tTBwNs

  8. Lovegrove, A. et al. Sci. Rep. 10, 5920 (2020).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Wheat Breeding and Molecular Genetics (United States Department of Agriculture, 2022); https://go.nature.com/3i6HXK7

  10. Schönhofen, A., Zhang, X. & Dubcovsky, J. J. Cereal Sci. 75, 165–174 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. A High-fiber Flour with Big Benefits (Bay State Milling, 11 October 2022); https://go.nature.com/3Xroggz

  12. Coalition for Grain Fiber (Foundation for Innovation in Healthy Food, 11 October 2022); https://go.nature.com/3EBIAmS

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank J. Dubcovsky for comments on an earlier version, J. Bartoy for editing, and M. O’ Flaherty for research assistance.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

    P. Stephen Baenziger, Katherine Frels & Devin Rose

  2. Foundation for Innovation in Healthy Food, Wilmington, DE, USA

    Steve Greenspan & Rod Wallace

  3. College of St. Catherine, Emeritus, St. Paul, MN, USA

    Julie Jones

  4. Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, UK

    Alison Lovegrove & Peter Shewry

Authors
  1. P. Stephen Baenziger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Katherine Frels
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Steve Greenspan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Julie Jones
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Alison Lovegrove
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Devin Rose
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Peter Shewry
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Rod Wallace
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to P. Stephen Baenziger.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper, but acknowledge they are members of the Coalition for Grain Fiber or the Foundation for Innovation for Healthy Foods and J.J. is a scientific advisor to Grains Foods Foundation, IL CEREALES (Latin American Organization), Grupo Bimbo and Quality Carbohydrate Coalition.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Baenziger, P.S., Frels, K., Greenspan, S. et al. A stealth health approach to dietary fibre. Nat Food 4, 5–6 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00674-w

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00674-w

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Anthropocene

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Anthropocene