Why Should You Chew Your Food Thoroughly?

Speaking about the digestion of food , you can think of one saying. In one of his books, the Italian writer Fabio Volo wrote: "If the bottom button of the shirt is fastened incorrectly, then all the others will be fastened incorrectly. There are many mistakes in life, which are not mistakes in themselves, but the result of the first button that is fastened incorrectly. And this expression is very well suited to all processes occurring in the human body.

Fast food

Proper nutrition, superfoods and dietary supplements - all this can be ineffective if the primary factor of health is neglected. This factor is the assimilation of food . If you pay attention to it, it turns out that a person is not so much what he eats, but what he assimilates.

The amount of food consumed by a modern person is impressive: at least 700 kg per year. Today, people eat more than all previous generations, but at the same time, they get very little useful substances from food . The main culprit of this is not the inferiority of modern products. In most cases, the reason is much more banal: too fast a rate of food consumption .

The average Briton spends 41 minutes on all meals during the day: 8 minutes for breakfast, 14 for lunch, 19 for dinner. These results were obtained during a sociological survey conducted in 2015 by the Imodium company. This amount of time for eating is a consequence of the fast pace of life in which most of humanity lives. However, it should not be taken seriously enough: eating at such a speed leads to a deficiency of useful substances and diseases of the digestive tract.

Rapid absorption of food creates a chain of various changes in the activity of endocrine glands and intestinal microflora. Thus, insufficient chewing of food is the very bottom button that triggers a cascade of malfunctions in the body.

Food digestion begins in the mouth

The Soviet scientist, physiologist I.P. Pavlov compared the activity of the digestive system to conveyor belt production. This principle of conveyance is based on the sequence of digestive organs . First the oral cavity, then the stomach, only then the intestines. Also, this means a sequence of food processing stages : first, mechanical grinding of solid food and then chemical splitting.

The first stage of digestion , that is, the first operation on the conveyor, is the mechanical processing of food in the mouth. The oral cavity is the only organ designed for grinding food . All other digestive organs change it not mechanically, but chemically, with the help of various digestive juices, enzymes and acids. After all, if you do not grind food in your mouth, the stomach, pancreas and small intestine will be forced to take on the additional burden of breaking down nutrients. And it is not a fact that they will cope with him.

Chewing is the key to proper digestion

Nature has provided humans with saliva with various enzymes, hormones and vitamins that regulate food absorption . Thanks to the enzyme amylase, which is present in saliva, simple carbohydrates (fruit, honey, pastries, sweets) are absorbed into the bloodstream directly from the oral cavity. This allows you to reduce the release of pancreatic amylase and facilitate the work of the pancreas.

At the same time, regulation of digestion begins in the mouth . Chemoreceptors present in the oral cavity analyze the chemical composition of the product and send impulses describing the nature of the food to the brain. He, in turn, regulates the composition of saliva, pancreatic juice and gastric juice, creating the best conditions for assimilation . That is why it is so important that the tongue is in contact with food for a sufficient time.

Scientists have established that careful chewing reduces the energy costs of food processing , increasing the rate of its assimilation , evenly distributing the load on the entire enzyme system. Due to the correct hormonal regulation, a person will get a feeling of satiety faster.

Chewing and oral health

In addition to substances that contribute to the proper absorption of food , saliva contains antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral components. It is she who makes the oral cavity the first protective barrier on the path of pathogens. Scientists from the University of Manchester found that thorough chewing of food has a positive effect on immunity. The study showed that chewing stimulates the release of a special type of cells of the immune system - Th17 - cells, which are located in the mouth. Their activation provides the body with reliable protection against dangerous pathogens that cause various diseases in the upper lymphatic basin (throat, thyroid gland, oral cavity).

Saliva also performs the functions of restoring the alkaline index of the mucous membrane of the mouth and esophagus. The processes of tooth enamel mineralization depend on washing the teeth with saliva. That is why insufficient secretion of saliva leads to deterioration of mechanical and chemical cleaning of the oral cavity and teeth. It has been proven that maintaining the ability to chew in old age is even related to the health of the cardiovascular system. Interestingly, it is the masticatory function, and not the number of teeth, that is the main guarantee of obtaining nutrients from food in the elderly.

It turns out that the health of not only the digestive tract, but also the oral cavity, teeth, and ENT organs depends on thorough chewing of food .

A bit of history

The idea of ​​thorough chewing of food was promoted by the American nutritionist Horace Fletcher at the beginning of the 20th century. His original technique consisted in chewing each piece of food at least 30 times. Following such a system, Horace not only got rid of excess weight, eating disorders and a number of chronic diseases, but also gained fame and recognition. He had many followers among the rich and famous. John Rockefeller himself chewed according to Fletcher's method.

Not so long ago, Fletcher's doctrine received scientific confirmation. British scientists have proven that prolonged chewing (35 chewing movements compared to 10 movements) reduces the amount of food consumed . And it also leads to a faster feeling of satiety, which definitely has a positive effect on weight.

However, Horace was not the inventor of the method of therapeutic chewing . The importance of consuming food for a long time and without haste is already written in the Vedas - an ancient collection of sacred texts of Hinduism. Yoga also states that the absorption of food begins in the oral cavity, and obtaining energy from food depends on the efficiency of chewing . The yogic postulate "Drink solid food and eat liquid " briefly and clearly explained the principle of proper chewing long before Fletcher.