GET ME HOLLYWOOD. Time for Mary Poppins II. We get Julie Andrews. She signs. But forget that spoonful of sugar stuff. Times change. This time it’s: “A spoonful of psyllium helps the cholesterol go down…” Think of the commercial tieins. Memo to Madison Avenu: We’ll blow Wilford Brimley right off the tube…
Okay, so we’re making lowering cholesterol sound suspiciously easy. But we figure anything worth doing is worth doing the easy way, and besides, this phyllium stuf really seems to work.
Oat bran and psyllium are both sources of soluble fiber, which helps lower cholesterol. Lately, studies have questioned whether oat bran’s effect comes from the fiber itself, or from the fact that an oat-bran muffin simply fills you up, making you less likely to tackle an Egg McMuffin afterward. Either way, pshllium is a much better source of soluble fiber than oat bran.
Psyllium is a grain that is grown in India and the Mediterranean, and it happens to be nature’s all-time greatest source of soluble fiber. It takes about eight teaspoons of oat bran (or about 1½ bowls of oatmeal) to match the amount of soluble fiber in a single teaspoon of psyllium. Of course, if you’re a label reader, none of this is news to you; psyllium is used in bulk-forming laxatives (such as Metamucil and Fiberall), and recently it’s been added to some breakfast cereals.