You can’t have failed to notice more and more news about your microbiome – the range of microbes in your gut that number in the trillions!

That’s because these bacteria have such a strong influence on your health.

1. They help break down what you eat into useable nutrients.
2. They send signals to your brain saying ‘hungry’ or ‘full’, so they influence your weight.
3. They affect your mood and stress level – via the gut/brain axis.
4. They help regulate the level of inflammation in your gut and whether you develop conditions like IBS or even yeast infections.
5. Critically, over 70% of your immune system is controlled in your gut.

What you eat helps decide the ratio of ‘good’ to ‘bad’ bacteria in your intestines – which is a major determinant of your long-term health.

Fibre is one of the most important types of food for a healthy microbiome

Trouble is that 93% of us do not get enough fibre in our diet.

Time to change – because fibre helps reduce cholesterol levels, heart attack and stroke risk, reduces blood sugar levels, reduces colon cancer risk, and helps achieve a healthy weight. So, here are our top 25 high fibre foods. I have listed them as grams of fibre per 100 grams of food.

You may be surprised at the fibre champ.

But if chia seeds are a step too far (and too expensive), on a cost per gram of fibre basis, baked beans and lentils are super-foods!

Top 25 fibre foods

How much fibre do you need?

For women it's about 25 grams (1 oz) a day, for men it’s about 35 grams (1.5 oz). The average adult consumes only about 18g ☹.

Eat more of the foods we've listed to boost your fibre intake.

The truth about wind

Here’s a bit of trivia. The average person breaks wind between 5 and 15 times a day - totalling some half to 1.5 litres of gas! But you can blame the bacteria which produce it – and carbonated drinks.

The reason it’s more than you probably realised is that most is odourless and some flatulence occurs at night. But it’s a sign your intestines are working properly.

This article was written by Colin Rose, a Senior Associate Member of the Royal Society of Medicine, who has been writing on science for 40 years.

You can read a lot more on how eating fibre, probiotics and fermented foods is one of the 10 ways to slow your rate of ageing, too, in Colin Rose's new book Delay Ageing – Healthy to 100. It explores the latest research that confirms that ageing is not caused by the accumulation of birthdays, it's caused by the accumulation of damage.