Proper digestion

I feel that this should had been my first article on nutrition. What’s the point of eating healthy if your body can’t properly extract and use all the nutrients, right? Imagine an engine, you can provide as much expensive fuel as you want, if there are always incomplete burnings you’re just wasting money. In order to better understand this essential process let’s look at the way things should work.

            Everything starts in your mouth by chewing and exposing food to the enzyme ptyalin found in saliva. This enzyme is pH neutral and helps in the breakdown of carbohydrates to simpler sugars. This is why if you extensively chew a carbohydrate, for example bread, it begins to get a little sweater. Next, the food stops in the stomach, which I’m sure is the first thing you think of when you hear the word digestion. In the presence of the gastric acid and other enzymes, such as pepsin, food is further broken down. The acid itself doesn’t participate directly in this process.

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Fiber

Throughout history there were always tendencies in human’s eating habit. As nutrition evolved, so did our food choices. However, the media always had a greater impact over the population than plain and clear research data. For example, there was a time when people over ate carbohydrates because they though that grains and all cereals are natural, which must mean that they are good. After this came a period in which, due to the desire of building muscles and misinterpreting all the beneficial facts, protein quantities were hugely exaggerated. In recent years fats, which are a must for your health, got neglected while fiber got a huge exposure. But what is dietary fiber? First of all it is a macro-nutrient which has the characteristics of a carbohydrate but doesn’t have any calories.

This is the reason why we have all these fiber diets everywhere and which are … let’s just say ... idiotic. But lets get back to the subject… Fiber can be of 2 kinds:

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The misunderstood fat

I’m sure whenever you hear the word fat you immediately think of something that gets you… well… fat. There’s no surprise that a lot of people avoid it. When they buy something, they reject a product that has lots of fats but are happy with the ones that are “fat free” and filled with sugars. In recent years, research showed not only that fat is helpful but also that it is a key component to your general health.

      Fat is made of groups of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Every dietary fat is consisted from 3 fatty acids stuck to a glycerol backbone (you can think of the letter E). Variety is usually achieved by the length of this chain and the number of double bonds. Yes you’ve heard right, these are the bonds that you’ve learned about in the chemistry class. To keep things simple, if there are double bonds, there is space within the molecule and therefore it can combine with other elements. 

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Building your diet

As said before your body doesn’t like harsh changes so everything must be done one step at a time. If you want to loose weight don’t just starting cutting calories like crazy, do it slowly but surely. The same holds true here. Don’t go replacing all your bad meals with healthy ones right away. It will be hard to switch the huge amounts of sugar found in sweets or fried foods, with healthy fats or and complex carbohydrates. Even if you are highly motivated to make this change your body needs time to get used to them so you might find yourself giving up because you’re feeling miserable.

How much to eat?

After knowing what to eat you should know how much to eat. The table bellow is here to help. Multiply your weight with the indicated value in order to get your caloric goal.

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