Tag: chew

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Benefits of Chewing Your Food

THIS POST IS A SUPPLEMENT TO THE FOOD CHEWING POLL – HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU CHEW – ARE YOU NORMAL?

Chewing your food at least 20 times for each mouthful helps with the digestion process by enabling your saliva to mix with and properly break down food.

There are enzymes in saliva that can start the digestion process even before the food gets to the stomach

Properly chewed food that’s well-coated with saliva also travels down the esophageus more easily. This is important as dry food can stick to the walls of your esophageus, which can create problems when swallowing.

When the food reaches the stomach, well-coated food can be easily broken down by the gastric acids that are release by the stomach. Well digested food will mean that the nutrients in the food will be better absorbed. Also, “under-chewed” food can cause bloating and flatulence.

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Chew Your Food

Chew Your Food, an article by Dave Saunders

This post is a supplement to the food chewing poll – how many times do you chew – are you normal?

I am going to share with you possibly the most important piece of advice you will ever receive about nutrition. This piece of advice is not about supplementation. It is not about what you should be eating. However this piece of advice affects every other dietary choice that you make.

Are you ready?

Chew your food!

Chewing is the first step of the digestive process. The fancy word for it is mastication. What it means is that what you put in your mouth is ground up into smaller pieces and mixed with some digestive enzymes to begin the digestive process.

What is the digestive process? To understand the process, it’s best to first understand the purpose. The purpose of digestion is to extract beneficial materials from what you eat and expel the rest. This process involves breaking down your food into smaller and smaller pieces. When some of those pieces are small enough they are absorbed into your bloodstream. Other components, like insoluble fiber, continue on through your intestines and help to expel other waste products and to clean the surfaces of your intestines.

So what does this have to do with chewing? If you do not properly to your food, what you have eaten will go through your digestive system as large pieces of food. You do not have teeth anywhere else in your body. After you swallow your food, there are no other opportunities to break up large pieces of food. The acid from your stomach and the enzymes from your small intestine will only be able to act on the exposed surfaces. Chewing properly is the only way to grind up your food so that it is small enough to allow the rest of your digestive system to extract as many of the available nutrients as possible.

So the next time you eat, put a little thought into the first step of digestion. Chew your food.

About The Author
Dave Saunders is a certified nutritional educator, wellness coach and author. He is also the host of a weekly, nation-wide telephone lecture on health and nutrition.

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Poll

Nail Chewing Poll

Do you chew or bite your nails? For some it is a cheap manicure, while others may see it as a disgusting habit.

[poll id=”33″]

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Poll

Chewing Poll

Doctors suggest we should chew our food well, but for how long, and how many times? Take the poll and find out what others think. How many times should we chew, on average?

[poll id=”32″]

As one person commented previously, it really depends on what you are eating. But in general, this is what they said. If you chew between 5 and 10 times, then it appears you are normal.