Digestion starts in your mouth. The only real job you have is to chew. Chewing breaks your food down, it stimulates saliva and sends signals to the rest of the digestive system to get ready! The average person does not chew enough. We eat on the run and end up swallowing foods whole. This adds stress to the digestive system, can lead to food allergies and leaky gut syndrome.
When we chew, we allow salivary amylase – the only digestive enzyme in our mouth – to break down some of the sugars in our food. If you chew long enough, certain foods begin to taste sweeter in the mouth as the enzyme does its job.
The Stomach
Once you swallow your food it is carried down the esophagus to the stomach. The stomach’s job is to add acid and certain enzymes to the food to break it down further. The stomach mixes and churns the food into a mass called ‘the bolus’.
The most common digestive complaint in North America is acid reflux or heartburn because we believe we have too much stomach acid. In fact, antacids are the number one non-prescription drug sold in North America.
This has a lot to do with the Standard American Diet (SAD) we consume but also because many of us actually have low stomach acid. The SAD diet is high in processed foods, sugar, fat and void of whole foods, fresh foods, vegetables and fruit. Due to stress from the SAD diet the stomach produces less hydrochloric acid, the food remains in the stomach for too long and begins to ferment. It is fermentation acids that many people attribute to heartburn. Antacids further exacerbate the problem as they lower stomach acid even more.
The Small Intestine – Where All Our Nutrient Absorption Occurs
Once the stomach has done its job, it will squirt its contents into the small intestine. The pancreas releases enzymes to digest food as well as a bicarbonate to neutralize stomach acid. The liver produces bile and releases it through the gall bladder to help digest fats.
The small intestine is approximately15-20 feet long; spread flat would cover the surface of an entire tennis court. Millions of microvilli absorb the nutrients we consume and different sections of the small intestine absorb different nutrients. It is easy to understand why the health of our small intestine is so important. If it is damaged or underproductive, we will not absorb the nutrients from the foods we consume.
The Colon
The large intestine, often referred to as the colon, is the last stage of digestion before elimination. The colon reabsorbs water and some minerals from the matter but essentially it passes undigested waste, fibre, bacteria and some water to the rectum. The colon moves the waste, by an action called peristalsis, to the rectum where it is stored until the process of elimination.
Elimination – How often should we be going?
The theories on how often we should be eliminating our food waste vary. Some suggest that you should eliminate every time you eat. The action of eating will stimulate the entire digestive process and cause elimination. However, once a day is also considered healthy, any less than this and you are considered constipated. We want to eliminate our feces because it is waste matter, bacteria, hormones and other things we do not want reabsorbed into the body.
Tips for Digestive Health
- Drink 8-10 glasses of filtered water a day
- Consume 25-30 grams of fibre a day
- Chew your food slowly and completely
- Be thankful for your food and do not eat on the run
- Keep a food diary in order to make connections to foods that might affect your digestion
- Eliminate processed, fried, refined and sugar laden foods
- Eat whole, fresh foods
