I bought a bottle of Metamucil 50+ Daily Fibre Supplement to Stay Regular in a convenient 120 capsule bottle. How convenient! That is until you read the recommended dose…which is 18 capsules a day…6 capsules three times a day. One bottle would barely last a week…and at more than $15 a bottle that’s a lot money to pay to take a shit!! The powdered stuff is over $20 a bottle but at least it lasts over a month. I can imagine how many people have been suckered in by this “convenient” new “breakthrough”.
The fibre in Metamucil is psyllium husks. The makers add colour, flavour and sugar.
If you want to take psyllium buy it in bulk at health food stores for a small fraction of the price and do without the additives which you don’t need. The amount you need is individual and also depends on the other fibre in your diet. You will needs to experiment to find what works for you.
Psyllium husks are an excellent source of fibre. As well as softening your stools it is an aid to diverticular disease which is quite prevalent in our society. Many people have diverticuli in their bowel leading to diverticulosis from middle age onwards. If it turns into diverticulitis you will wish you had looked after yourself better.
Increasing the fruit and veges and other sources of fibre (oats, wholemeal bread etc) is the best idea and taking psyllium is a useful supplement rather than a substitute for those foods.
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My GP advised me to take them some years ago, but he said to take 2 daily, which is what I do.
I buy the 300 capsule bottles from Chemist Warehouse so a bottle lasts me for around 5 months.for just over $40.
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Or you could do as I do, and buy Benefiber which is the same stuff and you can stick it in anything, hot or cold. I have it in water. You cant taste it, and it works as its supposed to (from one who has been chronically constipated since childhood but no more)
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That is what they obviously need to give those female tennis players before they let them play.
That continual grunting every time they hit the ball is extremely annoying.
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Being a bit sexist Fred, havent you heard the men doing the same thing?
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The 18 tablets contain 7 grams of soluble fibre from Psyllium Husk.
It will be cheaper to buy Psyllium husk at you local health/wholefood store and either, once a day, make a milkshake with 21 grams in it or sprinkle around 21 grams on your morning cereal to have the same amount of soluble fibre as the daily intake from the tablets. If you add/eat it with milk, this will provide the calcium which is also added to the tablets…and nutritionally may be a lot better.
A cheaper alternative to get insoluble fibre is wheat bran or oat bran/fibre…or one of the high fibre cereals. Oat fibre has the added benefit that it can reduce cholesterol at the same time.
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Not really. They must be an exception unless they didn’t take their Metamucil.
That’s about $280 per kg if my sums are right. If you buy little packets of psyllium at the supermarket it will cost about $25 per kg, if you buy in bulk at the heath food less than $20.
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No that is dextrin.
Ouch…very expensive way to buy fibre. Clever marketing to maximise returns…
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Is it? Well it does the same job and is easy to take unlike those thickening preps
It has taken me two years to find something useful to say about that.
Psyllium is the husk of a grain. I thought that it would be the texture of fine breadcrumbs as that is what I have always bought, that is what you get in metamucil (with other stuff). It looks like this:
or somewhat finer.
To take it you need to mix it with a cool liquid such as water or fruit juice as humans are just no good at taking spoons of dry powdery substance. If you stir it to get it wet but drink it before it absorbs too much water it is like a slightly gritty wet jelly, not the most attractive texture in the world but fairly easily and quickly consumable. It has little taste and you can swallow it down and get on with breakfast with no trouble.
My local health food store has gone out of business so I bought new supplies from Coles. It turned out to be milled much more finely, it looks like tan flour. The fine milling turns it into a hydrophobic powder that mixes with water or juice only with considerable effort as it tends to trap air bubbles and to refuse to be wetted. This slows down the whole process and by the time you get it wet it has already absorbed a lot of water and is thickening. The resulting sludge is very hard to swallow and sticks to the roof of your mouth and between your teeth - like PB without the flavour. I had to go and clean my teeth after to get out the lumps of goo that the tongue could not move.
Now I understand why some people say they just can’t take the stuff. If you want to try it, or give it another go, make sure you get the granular sort not the powder.
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LOL! I do have a bag of the coles stuff but only use it in tiny quantities for thickening stews or mince things. I didn’t like it either. Benefiber FTW though I no longer seem to need it.
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As you found, there are two forms of Psyllium husk. They’ll be labelled “Psyllium Husks” for the bran-like substance, and “Psyllium Husk Powder” for the finely milled one.
The latter is useful for adding some structure and stretch to non-gluten-containing flours in baking. If I were trying to mix it with liquid, I’d treat it the same as other fine powders like corn starch and cocoa. Mix the powder with a small amount of liquid to form a loose paste, then add more liquid gradually, stirring as you go. That makes sure it doesn’t form lumps.
Note also that you need a much smaller volume of powder than husks! 
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We make our own bread in a bread maker regularly using an assortment of wholemeal flour, white and several grains. There is a series of bins that hold all this. Next to them is the bin for exotics like coconut flour and (for lack of anywhere else to put it) the psyllium bag.
Each loaf is slightly different as various combinations of flour are used, the weather changes and other variables take effect. They can be lighter or darker, heavier or lighter etc. A while ago we had terrible run where several loaves did not rise. They were like door stops, you could have player football with them and they would have gone the whole match.
One of us had mistakenly used psyllium instead of one of the flours in the same box. As soon as mixing started the psyllium absorbed all the water, consequently there was no gluten development, the bread didn’t rise and we got ammunition instead of food.
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Better keep the psyllium powder well away from the flours - and clearly labelled! When intentionally adding psyllium powder to baking, one is cautioned not to use more than about one quarter of a teaspoon per cup of the mix, because of its water-absorbing ability.
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