The FDA is assessing whether 26 ingredients count as fiber on nutrition facts labels. “If you’re a nutrition-label reader, the list includes some familiar-ish sounding ingredients — such as inulin, which is often sourced from chicory root,” says NPR. “Other ingredients on the ‘do-these-count-as-fiber?’ list include gum acacia, bamboo fiber, retrograded corn starch, and — get ready for the tongue-twister — xylooligosaccharides. Some of these fibers are extracted from plant sources, while others are synthetic.”
Some consumer advocates worry that manufacturers add these ingredients to foods like English muffins and instant oatmeal to make them look healthier than they are. “The food industry has hijacked the advice to eat more fiber by putting isolated, highly processed fiber into what are essentially junk foods,” says Bonnie Liebman of the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Manufacturers counter that supplementing snack foods with fiber helps keep consumers regular, serving as a kind of natural laxative. Robert Burns, vice president of health and nutrition policy at the Grocery Manufacturers Association, told NPR that most people don’t get enough fiber in their diet, so “if you can supplement [with] snack bars that people are eating, it [can] go a long way to meeting dietary recommendations.”
Apart from regularity, fiber helps people feel fuller, making them less likely to overeat. It can also help “lower blood glucose and cholesterol levels, as well as blood pressure,” says NPR.