The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 8 letter word ROUGHAGE
I've seen this crossword clue in The Times
R
O
U
G
H
A
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E
More clues leading to the result ROUGHAGE
- Fibre, and estimate of how long it's been around?
- Coarse stuff witch squeezed into powder
- Approximate time to produce fibre
- This food’s indigestible — that’s as much as a lady will admit?
- Unpleasant period having fibre to eat
- Fibre approximately how old?
- Fibre witch coated with red powder
- Having a hard time with indigestible food
- It aids digestion when you have a hard time
- Scrambled egg with ham, almost our best provider of bulk to diet?
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "important element of diet" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case important element of diet = roughage.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.
What does ROUGHAGE mean?
ROUGHAGE noun- Dietary fibre
- Any rough or coarse material, especially fodder