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By Priya Krishna
Victor Nevarez had tried dozens of prescription drugs and powders to control his irritable bowel syndrome, and nothing worked. Max Wittek sought to control his appetite without relying on drugs like Ozempic. And Rachel Conners was just looking for a way to make gluten—fluffy cinnamon rolls for free.
Everyone came up with the solution: psyllium husks.
In a wellness economy that revolves around color-packaged supplements, in-store fitness classes, and celebrity-approved nutritional pills, psyllium husks would possibly seem like an unglamorous throwback. Derived from a local South Asian shrub, where they have been used for centuries. As a digestive aid, the pods resemble the mess found in a hamster cage, taste like sawdust, and are gelatinous when combined with water.
However, in the United States, they have a best-selling item. From 2018 to 2022, 249 new psyllium products were marketed in the country, according to market research company Mintel. Sales figures for such a fragmented category are hard to come by. However, a spokeswoman for the Metamucil customer product (necessarily sweetened orange-flavored psyllium peel powder) said its sales have grown by double-digit percentages in recent years.
Many new ones start painting in the kitchen. People with low-carb nutrition use psyllium husks to bind meatballs together. Home chefs thicken sauces with them. Gluten-free bakers use them in breads and pastries.
Ms. Conners, 29, said the sachets bring back her gluten-free cinnamon buns, the bitter aftertaste that other additions can leave.
“It’s amazing to find an element like that,” said Conners, who writes the Bakerita blog from his home in San Diego. “When you’re running around with gluten-free recipes, there are so many elements that paint but just don’t add flavor. good. “
Psyllium husks are even more enjoyable to explore at a time when many other people are looking for affordable opportunities to obtain new appetite suppressant medications.
Wittek, 33, a software engineer in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, who recently started a ketogenic diet, used psyllium husks to make cauliflower-based pizza dough more consistent. Psyllium, he said, “prevents my abdomen from saying, ‘Please put me in. ‘”
Increased awareness of gut fitness increases sales.
“Everyone now knows they’re not getting enough fiber,” said George Schaeffer, 38, a math teacher in San Francisco who began adding psyllium husks to his granola at school for digestion. “Millennials and Gen Z seniors are in favor of this kind of thing. We look for tactics for our lives that don’t charge much.
Unlike other fitness supplements designed for Instagram, psyllium husks worked for him.
Dr. Pieter Cohen, an internist at Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts, said psyllium husks may be helpful for constipation or diarrhea, but “it’s not a wonderful medication,” he said. “It’s to get enough fiber and the most productive way to do that is to use genuine foods: culmination and vegetables,” which taste better than psyllium husks and involve other nutrients, he said.
And not all psyllium products, he cautioned, are created equal. Cohen advised avoiding those with added flavors or sweeteners, which may have too many calories, and taking psyllium husks with lots of water — too much fiber and too little water can lead to constipation. He also opposed psyllium husks as an appetite. Suppressant: The supplement may decrease hunger for a few hours, he said, “but then our appetite increases a few hours later because we haven’t gained calories. “
Perhaps most puzzled by the popularity of psyllium husks are South Asian Americans who grew up with the supplement, also known as isabgol or ispaghula, as a staple in their medicine cabinets. Because culture grows abundantly in India, it feeds widely in the subcontinent and among its diaspora. The lime green and white box of the brand B. G. The telephone company, one of the best-selling psyllium products, causes nostalgia in many who have known it since childhood.
“It sounds like a thing unique to Indian parents,” said Divya Jain, 28, a researcher at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, who recalled how her father ritually combined psyllium husks with warm milk and rice to control his digestion and blood sugar.
He was surprised when he recently visited a friend who was not from South Asia and saw psyllium husks in his closet. “I like, ‘What are you doing with this?'” he said. Free prescriptions call for psyllium husks.
Sami Safiullah, a knowledge analyst in Boston, said his nightly regimen completes without making a cocktail of psyllium and water husks. “You did anything to help your digestion and you can prepare to relax,” he said.
But Safiullah, 32, fears that psyllium husks are the next turmeric or ashwagandha, South Asian remedies appropriated through American wellness culture. presented on Goop. )
They are also a must for gay men.
Alex Hall, who lives in Chicago, co-founded the online website The Bottoms Digest to provide recipes and tips to improve digestion for others preparing for sex. Those who receive, known as passive, seek to cleanse their digestive tract before sex. .
Because of the dearth of sex education for L. G. B. T. Q. people, she said, many turn to bad behaviors to prepare for anal sex. , 30. He tried several fiber supplements advertised for gay men, but they were riddled with additives.
“Then I started with the big bottles of psyllium husk with the ugliest marketing,” he said. “They had 3 times as many pills. I started buying this and noticed faster and better results.
He posts links to various articles on his site and “it’s psyllium husks that sell for more than anything I recommend: lube, non-dairy milk, sex toys. It’s the fiber. “
When Mr. Nevarez, 33, a YouTube host in Scottsdale, Arizona, first tried psyllium husks to combat irritable bowel symptoms, he became a supplement evangelist.
He made a video showing how to combine psyllium husks with water. In the video, giving a little taste to the insipid symbol of the supplement, he dresses in an apron with leather details and a collared shirt, and blatantly refers to Metamucil as “Muce”. And he treats his psyllium husk concoction as a subtle cocktail.
The video caught the attention of Ahmed Ali Akbar, 35, an audio journalist whose perceptions of Metamucil had long been tainted by his father’s daily drinking. But a few months ago, he moved to Chicago, and as a result, his digestion became irregular.
Now he takes psyllium husks, for his father, but for the M. Nevarez video.
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Priya Krishna is a journalist at Times Food. She is the author of several cookbooks, and added the bestseller “Indian-ish. “Learn more about Priya Krishna
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