I agree with the variation in everyone's response, likely related to genetics, biome diversity and other health factors, but I'm basing my dark brown stool color baseline off of 30yrs of bowel movements with a similar amount of carbs.@bizzoc , I'd like to point out that a lot of health articles that claim some sort of optimum something about human health probably only apply to a subset of humans. Some stated factors might be human average, ignoring the variations in healthy individuals. For a given diet, one person's optimally healthy stool is pale and soft, while another's is dark and firm. We're all different, and the important thing is to find out what is optimal for you as an individual. Does food x make you feel better or worse? For long-term health effects, I suppose we have to depend on good clinical studies, modified if necessary by individual reactions to foods.
Is there an optimum level of bile pigments for everyone? Probably not.
I take psyllium daily. I don't care what it does to stool colour, but I haven't had to strain to pass a stool since taking that supplement. Less wiping needed too, since they slide out cleanly. I hope some study doesn't come along saying that psyllium is harmful.
I'm hoping the fact I resolved my loose stools and they mostly sink now suggest the inflammation is low, but the 3 bloody villous polyps got me pretty concerned. If I eat 75g of fat in a day (eggs, avocado, olive oil, etc), and my stool sinks, that tells me I have enough digestive enzymes and bile to prevent having a stool with excess fat that typically floats. I even tried drinking the olive oil to test at 100g of fat in a day, no issues, still sank, likely due to my year or gallbladder flushes. So I clearly have a "sufficient" amount of bile, so the math doesn't add up, where is it going! 150billion BSH-enzyme producing strains with great adherence traits implanted via colonics can't be lost or diminished, and the study info I mentioned above proves the high fiber diet works, so something else is going on.