This volume carries the proceedings of the Vahouny Fiber Symposium which took place in
Washington DC in March of 1996. George V. Vahouny pioneered this conference which was
conceived as a means of exchanging information on the latest advances in fiber research. The
conference was renamed in George Vahouny's honor after his untimely death. In this volume we
have included the reminiscences of Prof. A.R.P. Walker one of the pioneers in the field and
discussion of the epidemiological findings relating dietary fiber to heart disease cancer and
gastrointestinal disease. As the overall definition of fiber has broadened we have included for
discussion other aspects of carbohydrate chem istry and metabolism. Complex carbohydrates were
the subject of a full session and resis tant starch and the role(s) of oligosaccharides were
discussed later in the meeting. Another area of fiber metabolism that is beginning to burgeon
is that of the short chain fatty acids and this too was the subject of presentations and
discussion. In addition the more familiar topics in dietary fiber were updated. Workshops
devoted to specific areas of fiber research have now become a mainstay of these meetings and
they were repeated successfully. Due to restraints on spending the attendance at this meeting
was somewhat smaller than usual but the discussion was lively and pertinent. We are deeply
grateful to our sponsors and contributors for their continuing interest in dietary fiber
research and for their generous support of this symposium.
