Abstract
Acknowledgment of dietary fiber as a food substance of significant nutritional value has increased dramatically over the past 40 years as the physical structure and chemical nature of these compounds has become more precisely characterized. It is now understood that dietary fiber is not a homogenous substance, but instead comprises a group of chemically diverse compounds. Traditionally dietary fiber has been defined as the nonstarch polysaccharide constituent of plant cell walls which is resistant to human digestive enzymes. Recent information has indicated that this characterization is limited because it does not encompass all substances which are physically or chemically similar to dietary fiber, or which have the same physiological effects. For example, waxes and cutins are plant cell wall constituents structurally similar to lipids than to polysaccharides. Another is resistant starch which is a nondigestible polysaccharide utilized exactly as a fermentable fiber but which is not a component of plant cell walls (1).
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