Mother Nature has given you a wide variety of healthy ways to add fiber to your diet. If you can tolerate fructose well, why not start with fruits?

Eating lots of raw fruits, including the skin and pulp, is a delicious way to keep your body healthy. Remember that cooked foods such as applesauce, and dried foods like apricots, prunes, and raisins, are also full of natural fiber. These natural laxatives often work better than the drugstore kind. Plus there’s no risk of dependence or dangerous side effects.

Go to the peach bowl.

Peaches are more than 80 percent water and are a good source of dietary fiber. This combination makes them a perfect remedy for constipation. One medium-size peach has 7 percent of the dietary fiber you need each day. Adding fruits like peaches to your diet can keep you regular and prevent straining during bowel movements.

Taste an inside-out strawberry.

Because they contain tiny edible seeds in the middle, figs are sometimes called “inside-out strawberries.” But figs are more than just a sweet treat. Pound for pound, figs pack more fiber than any other fruit or vegetable. Five figs, fresh or dried, give you a whopping 9 grams of fiber, more than a third of the recommended dietary allowance. You can find figs in a variety of forms, including the popular Fig Newton cookie – a healthy alternative to most desserts. This may be the treat that defeats constipation, but you may want to savor this flavor long after you start feeling better.

Prune constipation with dried plums.

You can rack up antioxidants and get regular at the same time if you eat dried plums. The name may not sound familiar, but you’d recognize one the moment you saw it. Like the star it hopes to become, the fruit formerly known as “prune” has changed its name and is now the “dried plum.” The California Prune Board recommended this change, and the Food and Drug Administration approved it.

But whatever you call it, this wrinkled fruit is still one of the best natural laxatives around. In addition to being a super source of fiber, it also contains a natural laxative ingredient. The combination is perfect if you don’t get a lot of exercise or tend to have constipation.

Eat dried plums plain out of the box, or put chopped prunes on hot or cold cereals. Use them instead of raisins in oatmeal cookies, or stir them into pancake batter. If you want to replace ground beef with ground turkey in your meatball recipe but find it’s too dry, prunes can help out there, too. Just mix in a couple of teaspoons of prunes – pureed with a little hot water in a blender or food processor – per pound of ground turkey. If solid prunes aren’t for you, you can also try prune juice

Treat it with a tropical treat.

Research has discovered that bromelain, an enzyme found in fresh, canned, or frozen pineapple, helps with regular bowel movement. Although most of the bromelain can be found in the stem of the pineapple, some nutritionists recommend that eating just four ounces of pineapple a day will help relieve constipation.

Stick with carrots.

Just one medium-sized carrot can give you a quick 2 grams of fiber that also tastes good. According to a study from Germany, the fiber in carrots works as well as cereal grains at adding bulk to your stools. This makes them softer and easier to pass – a great way to keep regular with less straining and no harmful laxatives. To get the most fiber out of your carrots, stick with fresh or frozen ones. Canned carrots lose some of their fiber in the canning process.

For even more healing power, try a fruit salad with either apples or carrots or one with carrots and pears. Not only will you get lots of fiber, but the burst of fructose from apples or pears could also help end constipation.