How To Make Digestion Rock In Your Digestive System Part1

Digestion, in very simple terms means the breakdown of big food particles into smaller pieces that can be used by the body. The big particles are composed of molecules. And these molecules cannot pass through the stomach or intestinal walls and had to be broken down into smaller size or units that the body can make use of.

Years ago, a very simple test was carried out by Thomas Graham, a scientist. He noted that simple food substances or products, for example sugar, salt, urine and glycerine can be made to pass through a semi-permeable membrane or patch of skin in a solution.

On the other hand, complex items like starch, gelatin, egg-white and likes hardly pass through membranes.

This principle will form the basis of digestion of food materials here.

Digestion begins in the mouth, and the foods we eat having been completely or partially digested passes through the various digestive tracts or membranes for the nourishing of cells, nerve, muscles, organs, and so on.

Yes, you can make digestion rock in your mouth, stomach, intestines or the food you eat will not be properly absorbed in a full measure. It will be absorb to a certain degree, but you will not get a medium or maximum benefit for good health.

In other words, food nutrients will not benefit you. The result will be malnutrition and lack of energy; disease occur leading to ill-health when the goal is to stay in good health.

You take a food into your mouth or you rather take a bite of a piece of meat or whatever it is. Some persons in haste chew (masticate) it partially and then hurriedly swallow it down. These groups will receive minimum benefit from the food eaten.

The rule is that you chew the food thoroughly before swallowing it down.

In my boyhood days, this principle was literally drilled into my head many times, and it stayed with me to date.

The food you were about to eat should be chewed. We can see here that semi liquids foods like custards which cannot be chew can still be digest with the alkaline saliva. The same thing applies to all liquids like tea, juices, wines and all beverages.

Here you will sip your tea or wine slowly for saliva to be added to it. In the case of the custard, I think you will like a nice cracker or whatever it is to chew along with it as a complement.

Some authority suggested that foods should be chewed into liquid form before swallowing down.

Why you may ask. The answer is that the digestive principle is a very complex mechanical, chemical and biological process as the digestive system is a complex structure.

In both human and higher animals including birds, the principles are somehow similar, if not the same.

Digestion is a preparatory process. It prepares the food one eat to be dissolve in a solvent solution or water making it diffusible into the body cells or the walls of the digestive tracts like the intestines.

Okay, now we look at the big picture of digestion.

The mouth

In all living things, exception is plants and some tiny-cell like animals, the process of digestion first begins in the mouth.

Three vital biological resources the teeth, tongue and saliva works together for this to take place.

Each tool has its vital place, but saliva is more serious right from the beginning.

Saliva is mucous like and contains ptyalin or amylase, an alkaline enzyme. It acts on the food, dissolving and lubricating same and bringing out the taste. Take a medium bite of a meat and chew it thoroughly until no more taste flows and you will understand this well.

Without saliva, you will not know if the food is tasty and delicious. It may look good, but it is chewing it well that counts.

The teeth grind (masticate) the food carbohydrates, fats and proteins including fruits and vegetables when you chew same; and the saliva further lubricate the mixture into a moist form. The tongue will roll the moist bolus or ball of food down the throat where digestion will continue in the stomach.

For saliva to act well on the food in the mouth, always take a pinch size or a little salt on all your chop plates to eat including vegetables.

Some complex food nutrients cannot be digested in the mouth. A good instance is B-Complex vitamins like B_12. Saliva protects this vitamin in the mouth until it enters the small intestine where it reacts with the pancreatic protease and it is assimilate and circulate in the blood stream. Chew foods well to release the much need saliva to protect the much like micro-nutrients in the food.

The esophagus

Many do not realize that digestion also takes place in the esophagus or gullet. What is well known is that it is just a passage like the throat for partially digested foods from the mouth to the stomach.

The esophagus is a connective muscular organ to the stomach and delivers the mixture of food-acid-saliva or chyme to the stomach.

Sometimes, acids in the stomach can escape to the esophagus. The condition is know as Gastroesophageal Reflux disease (GERD) or heart burn. That is why the esophagus separates the mouth from the stomach. Salivary carbonate is another by-product of saliva. It has the ability to clear an escaping stomach acid to prevent gastroesophageal reflux disease..

Some experts will tell you to avoid all citrus fruits, cereals, nuts, grains and meat; all beverages, dairy products and so on. I then wonder what I should eat because these food items falls within my food basket.

You never have to mind them. The natural complex carbohydrates and all unprocessed foods is not a cause of gastroesophageal reflux disease.. It only arise from eating much processed or refined foods devoid of all macro and micro-nutrients.

Some persons experienced this unusual GERD action very much with pain, and it negatively affect the digestive process. Chewing the food you eat well can relief it.

The Stomach

The next line of the digestive process is in the stomach. Not all foods can be digested here for reasons to be explained. It depends on how you treat the foods in the mouth, certain bodily factors like stomach ulcers or peptic ulcers and coelic disease.

The stomach mix and grind the food without any human effort; yet you should chew your foods well.

In the stomach, digestion of cooked starch which begins in the mouth continues. But fats or oil  begin to be broken down. Chewing fatty foods and proteins well in the mouth will help things much here. 

You can swallow a piece of meat or fish down if you partially chew it or not. But the further breaking down of the fats and proteins is hardly or partially achieved.

Here in the stomach, strong enzyme action by the secretion of hydrochloric (HCI) acid acts on the fats and proteins. One by-product of the HCI acid is gastric juice. It will stop the fermentation of the food and kills any bacterial swallow along with the food. But this has its own limit. The HCI will not act on the cooked starch here. It has already dissembled by the saliva ptyalin in the mouth. So the digestion of the cooked starch will carry on for some 30 minutes until completed. Hence, the more thoroughly chewing of foods whether carbohydrates, fats, proteins, fruits and vegetables is of a serious note. 

Another by-product of the hydrochloric gastric juice is renin. It clots milk and keeps it in the stomach. Where renin is not secreted, some persons find it had to retain milk in their stomach and results in serious ill-health like running stomach.

While renin clots the milk, pepsin will be acting on the milk proteins.

The digestion of the starch, fats and oils is not complete here but partially.

But the contraction and the relaxation of the muscles of the stomach and intestines in mixing the food into a soft liquid, and at interval passes into what is scientifically called pylorous opening or pyloric sphincter into the first opening of the small intestine, called the duodenum.

The story will continue in the second part.

To your good health!
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A Plate Of Digestible Chop

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