PRESSURE POINT

During the last ten years or so people have become more aware of the importance of fibre in the diet. Dietary fibre is the term used to describe those parts of plants, both vegetables and cereals, which are not absorbed from the gut. Fibre used to be thought of as unimportant and unnecessary. People have developed a liking for refined, easy to cook, quick, convenience foods which have had most of the fibre removed and so contain very little. Dietary fibre is basically the structural part of the plant cell, the cell wall that holds the cell together and enables cells to sit on top of one another to form the plant tissues. Inside the cell is the sap and food stores of the plant. When the pectins and celluloses forming the wall are removed the sap and food stores are left.