Chewing is one of my favourite nutritional health tips and a great way to improve your health and boost your energy levels. It’s free and has many benefits (see below). Although it’s easy to do, unfortunately, most of us aren’t very good at doing it.
There’s so much conflicting information about what is good nutrition and the guidelines are constantly changing. What’s clear is that improving digestion improves health and many experts believe that all disease occurs as a result of poor digestion and assimilation.
Lots Of Reasons For Chewing
Chewing your food is simple and ticks many boxes when it comes to nutrition and health because it helps to:
stimulate the release of enzymes necessary for good digestion.
- pre-digest food, making it easier for your stomach to continue the digestion process.
- alkalise food and slow the body’s glucose response to it.
- alert the organs to the type of food that is coming so they can attune themselves and prepare.
- improve the absorption and assimilation of nutrients, resulting in better nourishment for the vital tissues.
- prevent overeating by giving your stomach time to signal to the brain that it has had enough food.
- promote relaxation and stress reduction.
- encourage mindful eating – allowing you to focus on the tastes, textures, sounds and smells of the food you’re ingesting.
- develop a relationship with your food and a sense of awareness about your body’s actual needs.
- highlight any negative emotions and limiting beliefs associated with eating.
- last, but not least, reconnect you to the joy of eating.
Set the intention to make chewing each mouthful joyfully and thoroughly (20-50 times) your default way of eating. To begin with you will probably need to count to get an idea of what properly chewed food feels like, but with practise it will become automatic. Like Clutter Clearing start slowly and build up. The aim is to make chewing a life-long habit, not a fad. If necessary begin by dedicating one meal to this way of eating and let it naturally spread to all your meals as it becomes your standard way of eating.
