Good digestion is so key to health. You are what you eat but how you eat is equally important. Do you chew your food well as opposed to gulping it down? How to chew your food is the beginning of the whole digestive process. Even if you eat healthy foods but have trouble digesting and absorbing the nutrients – that’s going to be a problem. Patients will question why their body is treating them badly and I would like to turn it around and say to the patient, “why are YOU treating your body badly?”

Step 1 for good digestion, Chewing: Chewing your food breaks it down so the stomach can better handle and continue this breaking-down process. Not chewing well allows big pieces of undigested food to enter the gut. If your digestion is weak, this food will sit around too long and putrefy or rot right in your stomach. Ewwwww, that sounds disgusting! Yes it does! Rotting food in your digestive tract can cause all sorts of bad digestive symptoms such as heart burn, indigestion, bloating, tiredness after eating, loose bowel movements, and gas.

There’s a helpful expression, “chew your water, drink your food”. Sipping your water is about taking your time but more importantly chewing your food until you can drink it ensures that what your sending to your stomach will be easy to break down and digest. What goes down easy will continue downward and be absorbed well. The digestive tract is supposed to be a one way street – down and out. When there’s digestive trouble like putrefied food rotting in the stomach the digestive tract wants to kick it back up (nausea, indigestion, vomiting, heart burn – Uhgggg! Not a happy camper!) or rapidly move it down (diarrhea – Yowza! Outta the way! Coming Through!). So why not relax, take your time and chew your food?

More on Good Digestion to come.