The first step to good digestion is to chew your food very well. If your mouth doesn’t do its job, your stomach and your small intestine cannot fully absorb nutrients. Poor chewing is a common reason why so many people suffer from nutritional deficiencies. They just don’t get what they need out of their food. Don’t drink fluids when you eat. Liquids dilute stomach acids needed to dissolve protein. Don’t eat too much.
Cup your hands together. This is the optimum amount you should eat at one time. The 80/20 principle applies to digestion. Never fill your stomach more than 80% full of food. Don’t eat spoiled food such as aged meat. Limit processed food, or better yet, eliminate it from your diet. Don’t overcook your meat. Meat cooked well done is harder to digest. Don’t lie down after eating. Don’t take antacids. They neutralize stomach acid and stop digestion. Food sits in the stomach and colon and rots.
Many naturopathic practitioners recommend a teaspoon to a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to aid in digestion, but some people’s stomachs are a bit too sensitive and they may not be able to handle it. I recommend hydrochloride lactose-free pepsin, a digestive enzyme especially useful for digesting proteins. And of course, I recommend Thorne as the best manufacturer for this supplement. It will help acidify your stomach during digestion and add much needed enzymes to your food.
Combine your food properly. Don’t eat protein with starches. Eat meat with vegetables; eat grains or potatoes with vegetables. Eat fruit alone.
Eat an alkaline diet. Acidic diets indirectly inhibit proper digestion. By acidic, I don’t mean citrus fruits. Carbs like pasta and rice, meats, and processed foods, are all acidic to the body. An acidic diet places a heavy burden on the body and creates an environment loved by cancer, bacteria, and viruses.
No matter how healthy your diet, if you do not digest your food well, you will not get the nutrition your body needs.
Digest Your Protein
Poor digestion causes innumerable health aliments. Common problems associated with poor digestion include arthritis, acid indigestion, and high cholesterol.
One of the most common causes of osteoarthritis is a lack of protein in the joints (lubrication in the joints is made up of proteins). Your joints have 30 times more protein than muscle and tissue. If you don’t properly digest the protein you consume, your body will steal the proteins from your joints, its richest source, to meet the needs of the rest of your body.
After years and years of eating too fast and not chewing your food, of drinking fluids during or after your meals, you are more likely to develop arthritis. You’re starving yourself slowly, depriving your body of the proteins and the nutrients it needs.
There are many factors to good health. But remember, proper digestion is an essential factor, the foundation of your health.
The Way We Used To Eat
Sixty trillion cells make up your body and each cell requires nutrition. Food cravings were meant to be our body’s way of telling us what it needs. For instance, thirst is a sign that our body needs water—not milk, juice, soda, coffee, or tea. Craving something sweet is a cry for fruit, not candy bars, jellybeans, or ice cream.
We’ve corrupted the link between taste and our natural ability to know what our body needs by living on processed foods, a diet loaded with sugar, salt, trans fats, and MSG. We used to eat our food fresh and raw, picked from the ground or plucked from the tree. Even meat was eaten raw until we discovered fire. We ate fewer grains and we ate them seasonally. Proper digestion wasn’t complicated.
