Digestion
Eating healthy can look different for each of us. For some, eating a leafy green salad and all kinds of raw veggies makes them feel good and feel healthy. For another, this meal can leave you bloated, gassy, in pain, and for the most part an undigested meal. This has to do with our individual GI tract (gastro-intenstinal).
For some, this meal is challenging because they are under a lot of stress and stress takes away from proper digestion. For another, age could be a factor in not being able to digest raw foods. Someone else cannot digest raw foods due to poor enzyme and stomach acid productions (also related to stress). And someone else can eat this and mostly be ok. This scenario can be used for almost any food. I chose a salad because often this is mistakenly looked at as the ideal health food.
Yes, a salad would be good to eat, but if your gut is not ready to tolerate these foods then we have some work to do to fix your gut so that you can eat these foods, not be in pain and actually benefit from the nutrients instead of it all ending up in the toilet.
Heartburn, IBS, GERD/ reflux are a few of the more common issues people have with digestion. There’s also bloating, gas, lower abdominal pain, constipation and other intestinal issues that are also experienced a little while after.
Take note of how long foods take to digest. This is important. This also plays a role in when to eat certain foods, and food combinations. Some foods should not be eaten together. Some foods should be eaten alone. And some foods should mostly be avoided or limited (sugars and oils)
Simply:
Fruit- alone best on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning.
Starch and vegetables, or starch and plant protein (legumes, beans, or dairy and eggs)
Meat and vegetables- take longer and take a bit more to digest, so chew, chew chew!
Leafy greens- best at the end of a meal, takes the longest to digest. Tough greens should be cooked to aid in the digestive process.
There's a lot more to this because it has more to do with how we eat than what we eat as well.
