Roughage, also known as dietary fiber, plays an essential role in your overall health, even though it's mostly indigestible. According to the Institute of Medicine, men need 30 to 38 grams of fiber per day and women need 21 to 25 grams of fiber per day. You can meet your daily fiber needs by eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds.
One of the main benefits of eating roughage is that it helps to regulate your digestion. Insoluble fiber provides bulk in your intestines and helps to keep food moving through your digestive tract. Insoluble fiber absorbs water and swells into a gel that helps to keep bowel movements soft and easy to pass. These attributes of fiber give it the ability to help relieve and prevent both constipation and diarrhea. However, be sure to drink plenty of fluid when increasing your fiber intake to avoid the fiber becoming hard and dry in your digestive tract.
Maintains Cholesterol and Blood Sugar
According to the University of Arizona, eating soluble dietary fiber can help to maintain healthy cholesterol and blood sugar levels. When you digest food, your body releases cholesterol in bile acids into your digestive tract. Normally, some of these bile acids, and therefore cholesterol, get reabsorbed into your body. However, when soluble fiber is present, it binds to bile acids and removes the cholesterol from your body in waste. Soluble fiber also slows the absorption of sugar into your bloodstream, helping to keep your blood sugar level more even throughout the day.
Aids in Weight Management
If you're working on weight loss or weight management, roughage may aid in your efforts. Because dietary fiber contributes very few calories, high-fiber foods, such as fruits and vegetables, are lower in calories than many low-fiber foods. Roughage also helps to keep you feeling full while eating fewer calories because it provides a lot of volume and it swells inside your stomach and digestive tract. According to MayoClinic.com, high-fiber foods also require more chewing time than low-fiber foods, which may give you time to feel more satisfied from eating and reduce your tendency to overeat.
According to the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, meeting your daily fiber needs may reduce your risk of developing certain forms of cancer including breast, colon, mouth, ovarian, stomach and prostate cancers. Fiber may bind to cancer-promoting toxins and remove them from your body. In addition, high-fiber foods contain phytochemicals, or plant chemicals, that act as antioxidants, helping to prevent damage from harmful free radicals in your body. Fiber may also ease inflammatory bowel diseases by reducing flare-ups in your intestines.