Strong dietary fiber content makes a good standard for choosing nutritious foods. Many health foods have rich fiber content, while the opposite is also true: Less healthy foods that are high in fat, cholesterol, salt and sugar tend to have less fiber. When you choose food items and cooking ingredients with greater amounts of fiber, your menus will likely be better for your metabolism and overall health. The FDA suggests a daily intake of 25 g of fiber.
Beans
Start at the top of the fiber charts with cooked dry beans. As main dishes, soup ingredients and salad trimmings beans provide the most fiber per serving of all health foods. According to the USDA Nutrient Database, 1 cup of navy, pinto or black beans provide as much as 75 percent of daily values of fiber. Additional fiber-rich bean choices include lima, kidney, garbanzo and Great Northern beans.
Grains
Grains represent your next choice for large fiber amounts, with products such as whole-wheat flour, oat bran, buckwheat groats and commercial cereals at the high end of the scale. Whole grains, rather than refined grains, preserve their full fiber content. Thus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend choosing whole-wheat breads and pastas and brown rice over white breads, regular egg noodles and white rice. Other healthy grain choices include bulgur, oatmeal and wheat bran cereals, which offer up to 40 percent DV of fiber per suggested serving.
Fruits
All fruits add some fiber to your intake totals, with varieties of berries and pears providing the most per serving. The USDA notes that frozen, sweetened raspberries contain 11 g of fiber per 1 cup--more than fresh raspberries, at 8 g per cup. Additionally, Asian pears, also known as "apple pears," have greater fiber content than domestic variety pears. All pears, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and strawberries deliver 20 percent DV or more of fiber per 1-cup serving.
Vegetables
Use color as your guide in choosing fiber-rich vegetable health foods, which also have large amounts of essential vitamins and minerals. The USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest eating more green and orange vegetables. Among these, artichokes have the greatest fiber content, at 14 g per cup. Cooked spinach, pumpkin, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, collard greens and carrots all contain 20 percent DV or more of healthy fiber per cup. Turnip greens and sweet potatoes also meet this high-fiber criterion.
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