**2.2 Dietary fibers**

Dietary fibers are the portion of plant-derived foods. They cannot be fully fragmented by human digestive enzymes. Fibers are non-starch polysaccharides, such as cellulose, hemicellulose, galactooligosaccharides, polyfructose, gums, mucilages, pectins, and lignin. These are soluble or insoluble fibers that pass through the stomach and small intestine undigested, but they are fermented by bacteria in the colon when they reach the large intestine.
