 Though there is an international prune association, keeping us all apprised of the latest prune news from around the world, in the US the California Prune Board successfully pressured the FDA to change the name from prunes to dried plums, which evidently evokes more of a positive fresh fruit goodness image in hopes of attracting their target audience—women. Of course, it might help if they actually included one or two on their board. The name change is in hopes of de-emphasizing its connections to digestive regularity issues. But hey, why sell yourself short? Check this out. Randomized clinical trial prunes versus metamucil, also known as psyllium. Constipation is a common problem, and it affects up to a fifth of the world's population. Nearly 60 million Americans suffer from chronic constipation, particularly a problem in women and the elderly. A pathological condition is often severe enough to disrupt daily activities, a deranged quality of life, and responds poorly to available medical remedies, and may prompt sophisticated, potentially harmful surgical procedures. You know, despite all this, it's still frequently considered a trivial issue, and affected individuals tend to self-medicate, either using over-the-counter laxatives or quote-unquote natural remedies. But none of these have been adequately investigated until now. Fiber supplements can be inconvenient, taste nasty, cause bloating, even choking. So we need a food-based, natural, convenient, tasty alternative. But do prunes actually work? Here's the study subjects at baseline. Each dot is a complete spontaneous bowel movement. Note how many people had zero bowel movements per week at baseline, about an average of 1.7 a week, which went up to 3.5 on prunes of bowel movement every other day or so, then back to baseline off of the prunes, on metamucil got up to 2.8, then back down. And remember the Bristol stool scale? Significantly better stool consistency on the prunes as well. The researchers conclude that treatment with dried plums resulted in a greater improvement in constipation symptoms than the commonly used fiber supplements. So, given their palatability, tolerability, availability, dried plums should be considered as a kind of first-line therapy for chronic constipation. If this is what adding one plant can do, 3.5 bowel movements a week, what if all you ate was plants? Where do vegans rate? Going, going, gone. Not two, not three, but 10.9 a week.