Getting the best from your food
Listened to a great webinar today about Functional Gastro Intestinal Disorders by Dr Matt Marturano. He used an analogy that really resonated since I see this mindset in clinic and in the dispensary. For many people our understanding of digestion has evolved from the industrial revolution, we approach our body like it’s a steam engine, and the fuel (food) just needs to be shoveled in and burned and that’s what keeps us going. But this is an inaccurate assumption and misses some key considerations of how the body works.
Even if we’re putting better food into our mouth, making healthier choices, filling our plate with vegetables and spending hours fermenting sauerkraut and kefir, it doesn’t mean we’ll feel better or our engine will run longer or smoother. Eating better foods doesn’t necessarily ensure you get all the benefits from those foods.
The context of how you eat has as much of an impact on your ability to absorb and utilise the nutrients from your plate as what is actually on the plate.
Here are four simple additions that can make all the difference:
Eat in a relaxed state, in parasympathetic dominance: That means slow down. Sit down! Turn the TV off, put your phone down, take some deep breaths and always avoid eating on the run. If you can take the time to engage with your food while preparing it your brain sends messages to your digestive system about the acids and enzymes it’s about to need, before the food hits the digestive tract.
Prepare the food appropriately. Sometimes raw is best, but not always. Sometimes lightly steamed trumps raw and sometimes slow cooked is even better. Think about ways to get the most out of each food type and vary your cooking methods. Adding a little bit of quality fat in a dressing or condiment will help for instance in the absorption of carotenoids and turning betacarotine into vitamin A, a fat soluble vitamin. Leaving your garlic on a chopping board for 10 mins after it’s been chopped before you add it to cooking will greatly increase the cancer protective properties of garlic. Cooking tomatoes releases the lycopene.
Chew thoroughly. Mechanical digestion reduces the pressure on the rest of the digestive juices to break down large particles in order to absorb those nutrients. Additionally, while chewing our body creates more salvia which contains amylase, an enzyme to help digest carbohydrates.
Use bitter herbs and sour flavours in your meals to increase your digestive secretions and benefit your gut function. It’s very easy to predominantly reach for sweet and salty foods in our society, and yet by excluding the bitter and sour flavours we miss out on increasing the hydrochloric acid in our stomach, the pancreatic enzymes into our small intestine and likewise the bile from our gallbladder. A squeeze of lemon juice, a side serving of fresh salad, fresh herbs for garnish, a dressing of greek yoghurt… all these simple delicious additions make a significant difference to your ability to digest ‘meat and three vege.’
