Introduction.

Dietary fiber is an essential nutritional component, which, its modulating action on gut microbiota must be outlined. The consumption of foods of vegetable origin, and therefore, the dietary´s fiber consumption, in Spain, as well as in some other countries, has been reduced. Functional foods have been found to be a great food alternative to solve this dietary deficiency.

Objectives.

1. To review dietary´s fiber concept. 2. To get to know the real consumption situation of dietary fiber in Spain, in other European countries; in different age groups. 3. To study the main effects related to dietary fiber consumption, particularly the effects of proanthocyanidins (PA) with respect to the gut microbiome. 4. To revise functional foods concept, and the possibilities of incorporating dietary fiber and PA into different highly consumed foods.

Materials and methods:

The main research support has been the PubMed database, although it has also been used Google Scholar, ResearchGate and SciELO. At the same time scientific articles, books and reports from reliable and corroborated sources have been revised. In addition, official documents have been consulted, as the 2018 Spanish Foods Consumption Report, published by the Spanish Ministry of Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación; the AESAN website, and the current food regulations.

Results.

It is proved that the real dietary fiber intakes in different European countries, including in Spain, are far below the dietary reference intakes (DRI), in most of the studied age ranges. In this article, there are proposed strategies to achieve these DRI, particularly adding dietary fiber into highly consumed foods (i.e. meat matrices). The concept of functional foods is reviewed, and some of the most relevant publications reporting the effects of PA in relationship to the gut microbiome recovery, and its change to another related to the healthy people´s microbiome. The mechanisms by which the gut microbiome is able to hydrolyse the PA, and consequently release metabolites with gut and systemic protective activity, is also discussed.

Conclusions.

Given that modifying the population consumption habits seems a difficult task, the alternative of formulating functional foods enriched with dietary fiber and PA it is suggested. The increasing positive evidence observed derived from the consumption of functional meat products to which carob fruit fiber has been added, suggests the relevance of continuing investigating in this field, and therefore start the formulation of new functional foods (i.e. cereals, creams, sweets, etc.) enriched with this PA-enriched fiber, which would lead to an adequate dietary fiber consumption and the benefits from its functional functions.

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