Vegan Low Fiber Diet Guide + Food Lists

by Alena
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This vegan low-fiber diet guide shows you how it’s possible to reduce your fiber intake eating only plant-based foods! From delicious and simple recipes to helpful food lists of what to eat and avoid, this guide is meant to help you stick to a vegan diet while being on a low-fiber regimen.

Dietary fiber: it’s something we’re always told we should be eating more of. But instead of loading up on some beans and seeds to meet the minimum requirements of this nutrient, there are some cases where hopping on a vegan low fiber diet might be the better option.

From having trouble because you went vegan overnight and are facing double the amount of daily fiber to serious health issues like Crohn’s disease, watching your fiber intake can make a lot of sense.

Before we start, please be aware that we’re not trained health professionals, but we have done our best to diligently research this subject — as with all dietary issues, consult and work with your doctor to ensure you’re doing what’s best for your body. This is merely a guide on following a vegan low fiber diet.

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Also, everyone’s digestive system works a bit differently. While some foods may be perfect for you, there are other foods on our list of what you can eat on a vegan low-diet diet that you might find intolerable! Listen to your body, and always follow your personal signs of comfort and discomfort.

As you might know, there have been waves of people quitting plant-based diets due to digestive problems and because they couldn’t find a way to follow a vegan low fiber diet — instead of finding a solution, they started to incorporate animal products like eggs or fish which don’t contain any natural fiber at all.

To show you that you can still follow a vegan diet when you are supposed to cut back on fiber, we’ve created this guide.

Truth be told, any low fiber diet is restrictive and nutritionally limiting — if you don’t do it right, it may cause unintended side effects and weight gain.

But what plant-based foods have (almost) no fiber, and how can vegans eat less fiber? Let’s go over the basics of what a vegan low fiber diet is and then check out some food lists.

Full Vegan Nutrition Guide →

What’s a Low Residue or Low Fiber Diet?

Eating a low residue diet means limiting your intake of high fiber foods that can take a long time to digest. It’s supposed to minimize the amount of fecal matter in your bowl, a step which is necessary for the preparation of or recovery from bowel surgery as well as when you have certain diseases (more on that in a second).

This means that you need to keep most whole plant-based foods to a minimum and focus on more processed foods to keep the residue (undigested food) low and have fewer bowel movements.

When speaking about a low fiber diet, we should first quickly take a look at the two different types of fiber!

  • Soluble fiber — absorbs water during digestion and turns into a soft, gel-like substance; examples are apples, pears, beans
  • Insoluble fiber — doesn’t dissolve completely in the stomach and can be irritating to the intestine; examples include whole wheat and raw veggies. This type of fiber needs to be looked out for on a low fiber diet!
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Reasons to Follow a Vegan Low Fiber Diet

In general, everyone should make an effort to increase their fiber intake instead of looking to follow a vegan low fiber diet. 

But there are some situations in which it’s important to avoid high fiber foods, and your doctor might recommend you follow a low-residue or low fiber diet due to the following conditions:

  • Colitis 
  • IBS (irritable bowel syndrome)
  • Constipation
  • Diverticulitis
  • Crohn’s disease
  • Constipation 
  • Colorectal cancer
  • Gastroparesis
  • Chronic nausea
  • Gastric bypass surgery
  • Diarrhea and cramping
  • Irritation or damage to the digestive tract 
  • Preparation for colonoscopy

A vegan low fiber diet can ease the amount of work your digestive system has to do and bring relief from certain pains and symptoms.

Especially for those coming from a Standard American diet that doesn’t even meet the required minimum of 25-30 grams of fiber per day, going on a plant-based diet can mean that you quickly double or triple your intake — which will result in a whole lot of digestive trouble.

Therefore, it can make sense to ease your way into a high fiber vegan diet and gradually add more whole grains, nuts and seeds while still focusing on low fiber vegan foods.

Check out the following lists we’ve put together for you!

two printable pages to create a vegan grocery list

download our free printable vegan grocery list

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Low Fiber Food List (Plant-Based)

Typically, following a vegan low fiber diet means that you should aim for around 10-15 grams of fiber per day. It’s made up of mainly low fiber foods, some of which aren’t necessarily nutritious but definitely lack the important component fiber that you need to focus on right now.

Low Fiber Vegetables

Yes, you can eat some veggies on a vegan low fiber diet! Aim for well-cooked canned or fresh vegetables in small amounts and consume them in the form of smoothies, juices or smooth soups.

  • Potatoes (no skin)
  • Carrots
  • Beets 
  • Asparagus tips
  • Avocado (ripe)
  • String beans
  • Acorn squash
  • Spinach (pureed)
  • Lettuce (if tolerated)
  • Mushrooms
  • Tomato sauce, seedless tomatoes
  • Zucchini
  • Cucumber (no seeds)
  • Pureed beans and peas (if tolerated)

Low Fiber Fruits

Again, lower fiber fruits exist but they need to be consumed in smaller amounts. Track your fiber intake with tools like Cronometer (affiliate link) to not exceed your personal limit! 

  • Fruit juices
  • Canned fruit
  • Bananas (ripe)
  • Cantaloupe
  • Peaches
  • Cherries
  • Plums
  • Papayas
  • Nectarines
  • Watermelon
  • Honeydew melon 
brown haired woman in white shirt and apron holding a bowl of puffed quinoapin it

Low Fiber Cereals

Many of these aren’t very nutritious, but they can create a filling base for your vegan low fiber meals. Don’t forget to chew them well, too!

  • White bread or rolls
  • White pasta or noodles
  • White rice, rice cakes
  • Farina, cream of wheat, grits
  • Foods made with white flour, like pancakes or wraps
  • Crackers, zwieback, matzoh, saltines
  • Puffed grains, cornflakes
  • Cooked & strained rolled oats, semolina

Other Vegan Low Fiber Foods

Here are all of the other low fiber choices you can add to the three lists we just shared to make your food taste great!

Easy Cashew Mayo →

High Fiber Food List

Here are the vegan foods that need to be avoided on a low fiber diet or at least drastically reduced — find some tips below on how you can still have at least some of them.

  • Onions and garlic
  • Cruciferous vegetables (raw or cooked)
  • Potatoes with skin
  • Beans and lentils
  • Nuts and seeds (whole)
  • Pickles, olives, relish
  • Breakfast cereals: bran, porridge, granola etc.
  • Whole grains
  • Whole grain products: bread, pasta, pancakes etc.
  • Buckwheat, corn
  • Wild or brown rice
  • Fruit with seeds and peels: berries, kiwi, oranges etc.
  • Dried fruit, coconut
  • Prunes, prune juice

Best Tips & Strategies

Here are some of the best tips we’ve collected from official guidelines on following a low fiber diet as well as from people actually suffering from IBS and Crohn’s disease.

Not all of these may be applicable to you, but they can be worth a try!

Easy Digestion 101

We all know the bellyache after a large, greasy meal — especially if your digestive system is already finicky. Here are the basics really everyone should follow for less tummy trouble!

Eat small and frequent meals that are not overly spicy or fatty. Go low on the flavorings; your body’s ability to digest fat can vary. Extremely hot foods increase the activity of your intestines, so that’s something to look out for as well.

30 Vegan Low-Fodmap Recipes →
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Make Smoothies 

Yes, we’re talking raw fruit here — even though you should generally cook your food for easier digestion and to partially break down some of the fiber, once you’ve liquified your fruit into creamy oblivion, you have already taken care of some digestive work! 

The more powerful your blender and smoother your result, the better. Even seeds in berries or leafy greens can be packed into smoothies, but start with smaller quantities to not tempt fate. 

Juice Your Veggies

If you cannot eat many vegetables due to their fiber, then just remove the crucial part! By juicing leafy greens, carrots and apples, you get a tasty drink that’s nutritious but not harsh on your digestive system.

Again, start with smaller quantities and see which foods work well for you personally!

Cook Thoroughly or Roast

The softer your vegetables, the better! By roasting them to the edge of oblivion, some people can even handle broccoli or cauliflower — after these veggies have been at 425 °F in the oven for forever, that is.

Not all of the nutrients will be gone! You can then serve your veggies with a nutritious avocado and tahini dressing over some white rice and you’re well on your way to a well-rounded meal.

Chew Your Food Well

Slow and steady wins the race, so go for small bites and take your time. Aim for 30 chews per bite — once you count how much you actually chew your food, you will be shocked!

Once you know what well-chewed food feels like in your mouth, you don’t need to keep on counting and will be rewarded by much-improved digestion. Sometimes the little things make all the difference!

Drinking & Beverages

Have lots of water throughout the day, not only with your meals. Your bowels will love you for it! Herbal teas can be true remedies for a distressed digestive system, too.

While coffee isn’t really high in fiber, it can upset your stomach — go for decaf or other warm beverages instead.

As mentioned before, juices (if they don’t cause any irritation) can be helpful to increase your calorie and nutrient intake.

Avoid fizzy drinks and alcohol as much as possible!

Soups Without Chunks

The less you have to chew, the more likely it is that you don’t end up with larger chunks of food in your digestive tract. Therefore, making smooth vegetable soups without any chunks at all is the best way to eat your veggies!

Better yet, sieve your soups and lumpy stews. Here are some of our favorite vegan soup recipes you can try!

top view of open blender jar with white beans, soy milk and spices in itpin it

Puree Your Legumes & Seeds

Wait, legumes aren’t usually part of a vegan low fiber diet, right? True, but if you go ahead and puree them really smoothly, they can be okay for some people to handle.

Again, please be aware of your personal situation, but a few servings per week of hummus, refried beans or nut and seed butter can be worth a try — they pack a lot of nutrition and flavor, making your low fiber diet much more sustainable.

Best Hummus Recipes →

Enriched Products & Supplements

Get some extra help to meet your daily nutrient needs by taking your supplements as much as possible — for vegans, vitamin B12 is a must, but you might also want to opt for a high-quality multivitamin, vitamin D and anything else you might fall short on.

When your gut isn’t able to absorb your food properly, you can easily become deficient, no matter if you’re on a meat-based or vegan low fiber diet.

In terms of packaged food like pasta, juice or plant-based milk, choose enriched products for an extra dose of nutrition!

After all, it’s all about balance.

Increase Fiber Intake Slowly

Once you’ve given your digestive system a rest, slowly increase your fiber intake by introducing more fiber-rich foods again (as instructed by your medical team). If the food doesn’t cause any symptoms within 24 or 48 hours, it can be added to your diet.

Low Fiber Diet Menu Examples

Need a starting point? Here are some vegan low fiber recipe ideas for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks — please check with your MD or RD for specific tips and meal plans to follow.

Breakfast Recipes

  • Scrambled tofu with white toast and some vegetable juice
  • Cooked semolina with fruit puree
  • Waffles or french toast with sliced honeydew melon
  • Smoothie made from banana, avocado, spinach and peaches (optional: vegan protein powder)
  • Hashbrown pan with vegan yogurt
  • Toast with smooth nut butter and sliced banana
  • Peeled roasted sweet potato with nut butter, yogurt, papaya and puffed rice

Please note that when it comes to blended smoothies, other fruit like frozen berries, mango or pineapple can work well because their fiber is getting destroyed by the freezing and blending process!

Lunch & Dinner Recipes

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Low Fiber Vegan Snacks

We hope this guide on following a vegan low fiber diet was helpful and that no matter why you are advised to or want to try cutting back on fiber, you are feeling better soon!

Share which of these vegan low fiber meals are your favorites in the comments below, and send this article to anyone who might find it useful! Find lots more free vegan guides around our website and Pin this article here.

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Alena sitting in a cafe with a bowl of fresh plant-based food and a glass of coffee in front of her

About Alena Handwritten FontAlena Schowalter is a Certified Vegan Nutritionist who has been a vegetarian since childhood and vegan since 2012. Together with her husband, she founded nutriciously in 2015 and has been guiding thousands of people through different transition stages towards a healthy plant-based diet. She’s received training in the fields of nutrition, music therapy and social work. Alena enjoys discussions around vegan ethics, walks through nature and creating new recipes.

31 thoughts on “Vegan Low Fiber Diet Guide + Food Lists”

    • Hey Shaun, at the end of the article you can find a bunch of low-fiber vegan meal ideas and recipes listed!
      I’ll be sure to add more once I publish them on the blog.
      Best wishes

      Reply
  1. Thank you so much for this article, so informative! I never struggled with digestion and bloating in my life until I went vegan 5 years ago. In the last two months I’ve been having a lot of intestinal pain and never realized too much fiber was the culprit until now. I can’t thank you enough for these awesome meal ideas and information, so excited to start feeling better and enjoying my food more again!

    Reply
  2. Nice article, lots of information.
    I have been vegan for over twenty years and am preparing for a colonoscopy, no fiber.
    What protein can I have?
    Thanks
    Israel

    Reply
    • tofu and other processed soy products are low in fiber and rich in protein as well as small amounts of peanut butter (please check with your doctor, though!)

      Reply
  3. Thank you so much for this, I’ve been dealing with colon pain and am in the process of finding out if I have an IBD. In the meantime, I thought I’d try an Low Residue diet to see if it helps with my current inflammation & pain. This list helps me so much.

    Reply
    • sorry to learn about your health struggles, I feel for you! Get better soon and I’m glad that my resource has been of some help x

      Reply
  4. What’s your opinion on gut healthy protein powders? Also if you have a chance could you share more high protein and low fiber meals?

    Reply
    • we personally don’t use any protein powders and I’ve heard both good and bad stuff about them — the research leans towards them being a good way to meet nutrient needs, I’m not sure how they would affect the gut positively or negatively if you don’t have any intolerances. Let me look into it further and add it to the article!
      Here’s a video for more low fiber meals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQDSNCoAMD4 I personally just like to add tofu or soy yogurt to many of my meals as an easy to digest vegan protein source.
      Best wishes,
      Alena

      Reply
  5. Thank you for your help! I have searched all over for this type of information. My husband is a cancer patient who is having trouble with immunotherapy reactions in his GI tract. We are vegans–so the standard “help” from dieticians isn’t very useful without knowledge of veganism. I’m still looking for high calorie low fiber snacks and food. He really needs to gain some weight.

    Reply
  6. hi and thank you for this article! i was wondering why beans are both on the low fiber and high fiber list and if you could be a little bit more specific about which beans are low fiber. thank you

    Reply
    • Hi Clara, thanks so much for the question! So, the lower fiber vegetables include green beans or string beans because they are much more like vegetables and not like dried beans due to their soft shells. At the same time, you can puree or mash well-cooked chickpeas and break down their fiber a little bit to make them much easier to digest.
      This is a trick that works for some but not for others, so depending on your personal health situation, please assess whether you want to try this or not.
      I hope this makes sense!
      Best wishes

      Reply
  7. What a brilliant article. I have Crohn’s disease and have been in remission since becoming vegan 3 years ago, despite eating all the things that I couldn’t previously tolerate (nuts, seeds, kale, legumes etc)… but I’m now having a flare up and need to reduce my fibre to give my gut a chance to recover without going back on steroids (hopefully!). I was despairing (and putting it off) because I love my wholefood plant-based diet… but this article has given me the resolve I need to go on a low fibre diet for a few weeks and it doesn’t mean I have to eat like a fussy toddler!

    Reply
  8. Thank you! Another reader looking for low fiber options prior to a colonoscopy. They tell me what not to eat (peanut butter is on their list) but not what I can eat. I really appreciate your list so we don’t end up eating white rice with soy sauce for 4 days :-).

    Reply
  9. Thank you so much for this! Been a whole foods vegan for years and I have a recent mild gastroparesis diagnosis. For the past year the foods I thought were good for me were making me feel worse and worse and I’m now rather underweight and didn’t even realize it was happening, because I felt so full. I’ve definitely been freaked out by the idea of a low fiber diet because it doesn’t sound healthy but at least there’s some hope I can still rely on nutritious plants.

    Reply
  10. My situation exactly Emily. I have been a health conscious vegan for over 20 years. I then developed gastroparisis after having botox for tension headaches (you couldnt make it up). I have been told I need to eat a low fat, low fibre diet. The latter totally goes against anything I have done before. I am worried I won’t get the nutrician as have been losing weight due to not being that hungry. Therefore so pleased to see I can have tofu, tempe and tahini in addition to mushy veg. I need to eat well. Many thanks Tracey

    Reply
  11. Please include intestinal malrotation in your list of conditions that may require a low fiber diet. Some patients (like me!) cannot tolerate fiber as it can cause life threatening blockages. Thanks!

    Reply
  12. “Typically, following a vegan low fiber diet means that you should aim for around 10-15 grams of fiber per day.”

    How do you do this while getting adequate calories (2500ish) and nutrition? I’ve spent months putting together diets on Cronometer and can’t get below 30g daily without being deficient in something and/or eating so much oil that it gives me diarrhea (which is what I’m trying to avoid in the first place).

    Reply
  13. You can’t get down to 10-15g fiber on this diet unless you either (a) eat at a calorie deficit or (b) avoid most of the recommended foods. Mathematically it doesn’t work.

    Reply
      • Unfortunately that is a 500kcal calorie deficit for me. It’s also more than twice the maximum amount of fat I’m able to eat in a day without giving myself diarrhea – the chocolate alone would render me unable to leave the bathroom. I’m currently getting by on 30g fiber daily eating mostly white rice and white bread but it’s not a great solution, still going more often than would be considered normal range. GP says only solution is don’t be vegan :(

        Reply
        • so sorry about your issues! I never had to eat very low-fiber but I was struggling with digestive issues for many years and know how it can influence one’s quality of life.
          Is there any way you could get in touch with a plant-based RD who can help you create an appropriate meal plan that suits your needs?

          Reply
  14. Thank you a MILLION times!!!! I’ve been vegan for years, mostly processed vegan meats with cooked veggies and felt amazing. Then I started eating whole foods vegan to be healthier and lose some weight. However, since eating whole foods vegan, been experiencing constipation, gas and bloating. Never knew you could have too much fiber! Thanks for the article and the lists of foods to limit and the recipe ideas! I appreciate it so much!

    Reply
    • thanks so much for the wonderful feedback! Sorry to learn that you struggled eating so many whole foods and so much fiber — I personally cut back on the amount of veggies a while ago as well and have been feeling better :)

      Reply
  15. Loved this article, I’ve been vegan for 10 years and feel great.
    Except… I’m a marathon runner and having a difficult time on long runs/ races with pitstops.
    I’m hoping that significantly reducing the fiber in my diet will help. Any other suggestions? Notably, I typically only eat whole grain, no oil.

    Reply
  16. I am due a colonectomy in 2 weeks time and looking for ideas on low-fibre vegan foods I can eat for the first couple of weeks afterwards.I know Ihave to transition to white everything instead of whole grain, that tofu is ok , but very unsure about anything else I can eat

    Reply

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