Best foods for high fiber

Fiber is the part of plant food your body does not digest, and that is precisely the point. It slows the rise of blood sugar after a meal, feeds the bacteria in your gut, adds bulk that supports regularity, and helps you feel full on fewer calories. Most people in the US fall well short of the general reference intake of roughly 25 to 38 grams a day, so knowing which foods actually carry fiber is a useful place to start.

This page ranks the 176 foods in our database that qualify as high in fiber, ordered by our Nutrient Density Score, a 1 to 100 measure of how much nutrition a food delivers per calorie rather than per serving. That framing rewards foods that are lean and nutrient-packed, which is why intensely concentrated herbs and spices sit at the top. Thyme, fresh scores 99 with about 14 g of fiber per 100 g, while dried spices push far higher: Spices, basil, dried carries 37.7 g and Spices, paprika 34.9 g.

Read the numbers in context

Here is the honest caveat. You eat spices by the teaspoon, so a jar of Spearmint, dried will not meet your daily fiber target on its own. Treat the leaderboard as a density map, then build real meals around beans, whole grains, and vegetables. Individual needs vary, and this is not medical or dietary advice.