DIETARY FIBER

The objectives of this topic:

The students will be able to:
•Understand the chemical properties and
structure of fibre.
•State various methods for fibre determinations
•Describe the principles for fibre determinations.
•Analyse and evaluate the compositions of food
products.
•To calculate the fibre content in food
 Introduction
Definition
•Dietary fiber is the portion of ingested foodstuffs that
cannot be broken down by intestinal enzymes and juices
of monogastric animals. Therefore passes through the
small intestine and colon undigested.

•It composed of cellulose, which is the 'skeleton' of

plants, hemicellulose, gums, lignin, pectin and other
carbohydrates indigestible by members of animal
species.
• Resistant starch is now considered to be part of dietary fiber

• Resistantstarch can be defines as the portion of the starch that

is not broken down by human enzymes in the small intestine. It
enters the large intestine, where it is partially or wholly
fermented.

• The types of resistant starch

• RS1: This type of resistant starch is embedded in the coating of seeds, nuts,
grains, and legumes.
• RS2: Type 2 is the resistant granules in green bananas and raw potatoes.
• RS3: This type of starch transforms into resistant starch when cooked and
then cooled, like white potatoes and white rice.
• RS4: The man-made resistant starch - might see on a food label of a
manufactured, processed food like bread or cake. The label might say
polydextrin or modified starch.
•Crude fiber
mainly consist of lignin and cellulose. It is the
residue remaining after a food has been
subjected to a standardized treatment with
dilute acid and alkali.
•Dietary fiber can be classified into 2 categories
according to its physical characteristics and effects on
the body:

a)Soluble fibers

•Water-soluble fiber dissolves in water. Examples are oat

bran, legumes, Psyllium, nuts, beans, pectins, and
various fruits and vegetables.
•It forms a bulky gel in the intestine that regulates the
flow of waste materials through the digestive tract.
Soluble fibers eg. gum, pectin, hemicellulose .
b) Insoluble fiber

• Cannot be dissolved in water and in which the

bodies cannot digest it.

• This type of fiber includes the undisgestible parts of

plant walls. Examples are cereals, brans, and
vegetables.

• Insoluble dietary fiber content consists of cellulose

and lignin.
•Cell Wall Polysaccharide
a)Cellulose
•structuralcomponent of cell walls and associated
with various hemicelluloses and lignin.

•long linear homopolysaccharide of β-1,4 glucose

having up to 10,000 glucose subunits.

•Cellulose polymers associate through H-bonds to

form microfibres. Microfibers can associate with each
other to form fibers that provide strength and rigidity
in plant cell walls.
• contain numbers of different sugars in their backbone
and side-chains.

• soluble in dilute alkali solutions but insoluble in water.

b) Hemicelluloses

• Heterogeneous group of branched

heteropolysaccharides.

• Hemicelluloses comprise almost one-third of the

carbohydrates in woody plant tissue.

• The chemical structure of hemicelluloses

consists of long chains of a variety of pentoses,
hexoses, and their corresponding uronic acids.
•Hemicelluloses may be found in fruit, plant stems, and
grain hulls.

•Although hemicelluloses are not digestible, they can be

fermented by yeasts and bacteria.

•The polysaccharides yielding pentoses on hydrolysis are

called pentosans.

•Xylan is an example of a pentosan consisting of D-xylose

units with β1→4 linkages.
c) Pectins
• another form of heteropolysaccharides found in cell
walls.
▪ backbone structure of methylated ester of
polygalacturonic acid which consists of 300 – 1000
galacturonic acid units linked to each other by α-1,4
glycosidic bond.
▪ Side chain – arabinose, xylose, rhamnose. Soluble in
hot water and capable of forming gels.
•Non Cell Wall Polysaccharides

•Alsodigestible carbohydrates, but not derived from

the cell walls of plants.

•Non-cellwall polysaccharides include hydrocolloids

such as guar and locust bean gum, gum arabic, agar,
alginates and carageenans which are commonly
used in foods as gelling agents, stabilizers and
thickeners.
•Lignin

•most commonly derived from wood, and an integral

part of the secondary cell walls of plants and some
algae

•non-carbohydrate polymer that consists of about 40

aromatic subunits which are covalently linked.

•usually associated with cellulose and hemicelluloses

in plant cell-walls.
SECONDARY CELL WALL
Structure of lignin
 Importance of Fiber determination
•Index of feeding value of poultry and stock feed.

•Evaluating the efficiency of milling and separating

bran fiber from endosperm.

•Determination of succulence of fresh vegetables and

fruits.
 Factors Affecting Fiber Determination Accuracy

• Foodwith significant amount of resistant starch and lignin, will

show high fiber content, therefore fiber content will be
overestimated. Resistant starch measured as fiber.

• If
sugar is not extracted from sugar rich foods prior to fiber
analysis, fiber content will be overestimated.

• Incorporation of proteolytic enzyme in both AOAC and

Englyst-Cummings procedures to digest protein allows some
fiber to be solubilized, which effect moves some of the insoluble
fiber fraction into the soluble fiber fraction.
 Sample preparation

1. The common procedures used in many of the dietary

fiber analysis are :

•Lipid removal. The food sample to be analyzed is

therefore dried, ground to a fine powder and then the
lipids are removed by solvent extraction.
•Protein removal. Proteins are usually broken down
and solubilized using enzymes, strong acid or strong
alkali solutions. The resulting amino acids are then
separated from insoluble fiber by filtration or from
total fiber by selective precipitation of the fiber with
ethanol solutions.

•Starchremoval. Semi-crystalline starch is gelatinized

by heating in the presence of water, and then the
starch is broken down and solubilized by specific
enzymes, strong acid or strong alkali.
•The glucose is then separated from insoluble fibre by
filtration .

2. Selective precipitation of fibres.

•Dietary fibres can be separated from other
components in aqueous solutions by adding different
concentrations of ethanol to cause selective
precipitation.
•The solubility of monosaccharides, oligosaccharides
and polysaccharides depends on the ethanol
concentration.
•Examples:
i) Water:
monosaccharides, oligosaccharides, some
polysaccharides and amino acids are soluble; other
polysaccharides and fibre are insoluble.
ii) 80% ethanol solutions:
monosaccharides, oligosaccharides and amino acids are
soluble; polysaccharides and fibres are insoluble.
For this reason, concentrated ethanol solutions are often
used to selectively precipitate fibres from other
components.
 Fiber Analysis.

The fiber content of a food can be determined as

follows:
a) gravimetrically : by weighing the mass of an
insoluble fiber fraction isolated from a sample
OR
b) chemically : by breaking down the fiber into its
constituent of monosaccharides and measuring their
concentration using the appropriate methods.
 A. Gravimetric Method
1. Crude Fibre Method
(Non enzymatic-gravimetric method)

Principle
• Digestible carbohydrate, lipid and protein are
selectively solubilized by chemical.

• Sample digested by H2SO4 to hydrolyze CHO and

protein and NaOH will saponify fatty acid.
• Insoluble residue is collected by filtration then dried,
weighed (A grams).

• Ashing conducted, cooled and weighed to correct

mineral contamination (B grams).
Calculation for Crude Fibre content

Crude fibre = (A – B) grams X 100

weight of sample

•Crude fibre determined consist mainly of

cellulose and lignin.
•Pectin and hemicellulose are solubilized -
cannot be detected.
2. Detergent Method
•Method developed by Van Soest & Wine (1967)

I. Neutral Detergent Fibre method (NDF)

Principle:
•Food samples boiled with detergent solution (Sodium
Lauryl sulfate) at neutral pH
•Residue collected are cellulose, lignin and
hemicellulose.
 II. Acid Detergent Fiber (ADF)

Principle:
•Dilute acid solubilise hemicellulose and leaving
cellulose and lignin as residue.
•By Difference of NDF and ADF = hemicellulose
determined
Note: NDF does not solubilise starch efficiently,
leading to erraneously high fiber values for starchy
foods like flour or potatoes.
3. Dietary Fiber – AOAC method (Enzymatic-Gravimetric
method)
Principle

• Duplicates samples are enzymatically digested with α-amylase,

amyloglucosidase and protease to remove starch and protein.
(α-amylase hydrolysed 1,4 linkages while amyloglucosidase
hydrolysed 1,4 and 1,6 linkages )

• Insoluble fiber is collected by filtration.

• The filtered fiber residues are washed with ethanol and acetone, oven
dried and weighed.

• Solublefiber is precipitated by bringing to 78% ethanol and collected

by filtration, wash with ethanol and acetone, oven dried, cooled and
weighed .
• Since some protein and minerals are complexed with plant cell
wall constituents, fiber values must be corrected.

• Oneduplicate is analyzed for protein (Kjeldahl method) and

the other in incinerated to determine ash content (Ash
method)

Calculation for Fiber content:

• Fiber = Residue Weight – (Weight of Protein + Ash)

Analysis of Total Dietary Fibre (TDF), Insoluble Dietary Fibre (TDF) and Soluble Dietary Fibre (SDF) by AOAC method 32.1.17 (45)
Source: Adapted from AOAC International 1995 (45)
 B. Enzymatic-Chemical method

•Fibre is equal to the sum of all non starch

monosaccharide plus lignin

•Monosaccharide are measured indirectly by

colorimetric or chromatographic methods
Englyst-Cummings Method (Enzymatic-Chemical method)

•Principle

•defatted food sample is heated in water to

gelatinized the starch (resistant starch).

•Enzymes like pancreatin and pullanase are then

added to digest starch and protein.

•Fiber is precipitated by adding100% ethanol,

separated by centrifugation, washed and dried.
•Starchis removed enzymatically and soluble polymers
are precipitated with ethanol.

•Precipitated and insoluble polysaccharides are

hydrolyzed using sulfuric acid and the released neutral
sugars are quantitated as alditol acetates using
gas-liquid chromatography.

•Uronic acids in the acid hydrolysate are determined by

colorimetry.

•Total Dietary Fiber = Neutral Sugars + Uronic acids

 Summary
•Methods selected for crude fiber analysis determined
the accuracy of measurement/result achieved.

•Gravimetricand chemical methods commonly used to

determine total, soluble and insoluble fiber content of
foods, give comparable estimates of fiber content for
most foods.
•Gravimetric method overestimates foods rich in simple
sugars (glucose, fructose and sucrose) eg. in dry fruits
because sugars are trapped in precipitate formed when
ethanol added

•E-C method does not determine lignin and resistant

starch. Therefore gives low fiber contents for foods
high in these substances (eg. corn flakes or cereal
brans).
•Gravimetric and E-C methods both use proteolytic
enzymes to digest proteins - can cause some of the
fiber to be broken down and solubilized, which would
increase soluble fiber detected.

•There are also differences in time, equipment,

chemicals and level of technical skill required to carry
out each analysis that should be considered when
selecting the most appropriate technique for a
particular application.