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Inulin may be in chocolate bars, drinks, snacks, and before you know it, you may eat more than you can tolerate and have gastrointestinal issues you wouldn't necessarily associate with those foods.
Inulin can be found in high fiber breakfast bars, ice creams, and beverages among other processed foods. The label may list inulin, chicory root extract, oligosaccharide, or oligofructose. For example, the Fiber One Chewy Bar with 9 grams of dietary fiber lists chicory root extract as its top
ingredient.
Inulin is a carbohydrate fiber that occurs naturally in bananas, wheat, onions and garlic and in high concentrations in chicory root.
Inulin passes through the small intestines to the colon where it stimulates the growth of "good bacteria" and is fermented by bacteria. In some people it can cause gas, bloating, flatulence, and
diarrhea.
Because of its growing popularity as a food additive, Joanne Slavin, a registered dietitian in the department of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota at St. Paul and her colleagues wanted to assess how much inulin it takes to cause gastrointestinal problems.
Slavin and colleagues conclude, based on their study, that most healthy people can tolerate up to 10 grams of native inulin and 5 grams of the "sweet" inulin a day.
Food manufacturers, faced with demands to reduce calories, fat, and sodium while increasing fiber and flavor, are increasingly turning to products like inulin. They have discovered they can chemically manipulate the chemical structure of inulin to mimic tastes and textures consumers want in food. It's like a food manufacturer's nirvana, Slavin
said.
Slavin and her colleagues urge continued study of tolerance levels of food additives like inulin because their use is likely to continue to grow and there is the potential for
overuse.
The research was funded by Cargill, Inc. a maker of inulin food additives, which provided the product used in the
study.
Source
Journal of the American Dietetic Association, June 2010
(MDN)
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