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.
