Digestion
Over the course of the next few weeks, we will be exploring Nutritional Therapy’s 6 foundations of health, getting a better understanding of how each foundation applies to our bodies. I am going to begin this week with Digestion. I believe this to be the most important foundation. If we are not properly digesting our food, our bodies are not absorbing the important nutrients that food provides to us, like vitamins and minerals, water, & fatty acids. Every cell, that makes up every tissue, that makes up every organ depends on the digestive system to provide the nutrients it needs. You could be eating the cleanest diet, but if your body is having trouble digesting the food, it is essentially a waste.
Digestion is a north to south process. It begins in our brains. The sight and smell of food triggers the salivary glands to begin producing saliva. Next the teeth begin the physical breakdown of food. The saliva moistens the food to make it easier to swallow. This step is critical. Our bodies need to be in a parasympathetic (calm) state to engage the digestive process. Most of us are in a sympathetic state (anxious, stressed, rushed). We all (myself included) tend to rush through this step. Humans, we eat on the go, rushing through to after school activities, work, or just life! We tend to not sit down and enjoy what we have taken 2 hours to prepare or what someone else has prepared for us! This can create digestive issues. The food isn’t being broken down properly and we are swallowing large pieces of food that our stomaches are not able to digest. Hence, bloating and gas. If anything, I would say, just chewing your food a few more times than usual may greatly improve your digestion. Drink your food and chew your liquids! 🙂 Next the teeth begin the physical breakdown of food.
As we continue south, the food (bolus-technical term) has now entered the esophagus and travels into the stomach. The stomach continues breaking down the food through gastric juices or acid. Yes, stomach acid is good! (Another topic for another time). The stomach has a hard time breaking down large pieces of food so stomach acid is critical to breaking down the food so it can move into the Small Intestine. Otherwise it sits in the stomach creating bacteria. These maldigested foods cause a “reflux” or backwards motion into the Esophagus. After the food (bolus) leaves the stomach, it enters the small intestine as chyme. This is where a lot of important things happen. When digestion is working properly, this is where fats (through the Gallbladder), carbohydrates (through the Pancreas), proteins (Pancreas) are absorbed. When digestion isn’t working properly, the stomach can’t create the bolus that gets broken down in chyme. The chyme then can not feed the Gallbladder and Pancreas. When digestion is doing going right, the leftover chyme is then absorbed by the large intestine. Here the large intestine absorbs the water, recycles the waste material which nourishes the cells and captures any lost nutrients. Lastly, this is all expelled through our feces. Yeah! Hence, north to south!
You may be saying, Wow! that was more than I needed to know about where that piece of pizza went that I just ate! But it’s important because the food we eat is fueling our bodies. Whether it’s fueling our bodies for good or bad, that’s important.
I guess if you could take one thing away from this it would be, like our parents and grandparents always told us, chew your food! Who would have thought…