Humans have a habit of taking well-intentioned ideas to extremes. From ‘sleepmaxxing’ to ‘looksmaxxing’, social media trends increasingly frame health behaviours as optimisation challenges rather than habits to be integrated sustainably. In this context, fibremaxxing – the practice of deliberately increasing fibre intake, often as much as possible – has emerged as one of the more, dare I say, nutritionally respectable trends.

At its best, fibremaxxing simply reframes a long-standing public health message: eat more plant foods. At its most extreme, however, it becomes a numbers-driven pursuit of maximum fibre intake, often relying on supplements and fibre-enriched products rather than whole foods. As with many nutrition trends, the underlying science is sound – but the application is where nuance is required.