Chewing & Your Health

Chewing grinds up hard chunks of food and liquefies your food, turning it into a slushy paste. Thorough chewing immediately exposes your food to digestive juices in your saliva, and after swallowing, your stomach as well, thus ensuring better digestion. Chewing can be a great remedy for many digestive ailments. Popping enzyme pills or probiotics pales in comparison to the simple, mechanical benefits of careful chewing.

Once I had a client with Crohn's disease that swallowed an unchewed almond by accident. The almond got caught in his colon which eventually had to be amputated as a result. That's a heavy price to pay for incomplete chewing. Consider this: How much longer would it take your stomach acids to dissolve a whole peanut compared to one completely mashed and mixed with saliva?

Insufficient chewing of food forces your stomach to break down your food by acids. This takes both time and effort, and leads to a delay in digestion. As digestion is a metabolically intense process, poorly chewed food makes you and your digestive tract feel tired. Incomplete chewing saps your energy. While your stomach churns away, your gut will feel heavy as if you've eaten a large meal.

Incomplete chewing causes sluggish digestion or even worse: acid reflux, indigestion, and bloating. If you have acid reflux, proper chewing is one of the best ways to minimize the amount of time the food sits in your stomach, so that acids won't linger. If you can't produce enough acid or enzymes in your gut to digest your food well, use your saliva to lighten the burden on these organs. Saliva contains digestive enzymes that start breaking down your food right away. To boot, mastication actually increases saliva output by 10x. Saliva has many other benefits as well. Its antibodies flag toxins for the immune system to destroy. Its antiseptic nature kills bacteria. And the hormones in saliva stimulate gut contraction to move food along the GI tract.

HERBS AND PRODUCTS FOR IMBALANCES RELATED TO 'INCOMPLETE CHEWING'

MORE DIGESTION TIPS

DISCLAIMER: The pathogenesis of each person's condition is unique, and so the diet must be fit to the individual and the unique root causes of the condition in your body. The information on this page is for educational purposes only and should not be used to treat a medical condition. It is not a substitute for medical care. Please check with your doctor before making any changes to your health and wellness routine.

AGGRAVATES THESE DOSHAS & QUALITIES

Imbalance Accumulates

Improper food and lifestyle causes balances to accumulate. Ayurveda shows you exactly which doshas and qualities are likely to accumulate in your body. Once these doshas and qualities accumulate too much, they will begin to cause imbalance. You can reduce an imbalanced dosha or quality by removing things that aggravate it from your diet and lifestyle.

V = VATA, P = PITTA, K = KAPHA

GUNA	FOODS TO AVOID	DO YOU HAVE THIS IMBALANCE?
DIFFICULT ABOUT DIFFICULT GUNA Difficult refers to anything that is difficult to digest, or takes a long time to digest. LEARN MORE ABOUT DIFFICULT	MODERATE THESE DIFFICULT FOODS IF INCOMPLETE CHEWING IS CAUSING A PROBLEM	FIND OUT Status Unknown Take these quizzes to find out if you need to decrease Difficult to digest foods.

To learn more about the symbols above, click on them.

SEE A DIET WHICH REMOVES THESE QUALITIES

ADDRESS ISSUES IN STAGE OF DISEASE 0

Potential causes increase and disturb your imbalanced doshas and qualities, causing them to accumulate and spiral out of control. For example, if you're overheated and eat a chili pepper, heat may become excessive and cause disease. As a dosha or quality accumulates in your body according to your dietary and lifestyle habits, it is more and more likely to cause disease. You can reduce an imbalanced dosha or quality in two ways, by removing, or lessening the frequency of aggravating causes from your diet and lifestyle, as well as by favoring balancing diet and lifestyle practices. For example, try eating something as cool as a cucumber when you're overheated, instead of a chili pepper.

REDUCE THESE RELATED SYMPTOMS & HABITS

DO YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR UNIQUE BODY?

What aggravates it? What heals it? Then get your Personal Ayurvedic Body Book! This book, written by founder and director of Joyful Belly, John Immel, is individually formatted for your unique body and will help you confidently choose food that restores your healthy glow to get you feeling like your best self. Just $19.99!

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About the Author

John Immel, the founder of Joyful Belly, teaches people how to have a healthy diet and lifestyle with Ayurveda. His approach to Ayurveda exudes a certain ease, which many find enjoyable and insightful. His online course Balance Your Ayurvedic Diet in a Week provides tools for gracefully healing with Ayurveda to thousands. John also directs Joyful Belly's School of Ayurveda , which specializes in digestive tract pathology & Ayurvedic nutrition. John and his wife Natalie recently published Explore Your Hunger: A Guide to Hunger, Appetite & Food.

John's interest in Ayurveda and digestive tract pathology was inspired by a complex digestive disorder acquired from years of international travel, including his public service work in South Asia. John's commitment to the detailed study of digestive disorders reflects his zeal to get down to the roots of the problem. His hope and belief in the capacity of each & every client to improve their quality of life is nothing short of a personal passion. John's creativity in the kitchen and delight in cooking for others comes from his family oriented upbringing. In addition to his certification in Ayurveda, John holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Harvard University.

John enjoys sharing Ayurveda within the context of his Catholic roots, and finds Ayurveda gives him an opportunity to participate in the healing mission of the Church. Jesus expressed God's love by feeding and healing the sick. That kindness is the fundamental ministry of Ayurveda as well.

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Comments & Personal Experiences

What are some of the reasons why you include 'incomplete chewing' in your life? Is there something you'd like to know about 'incomplete chewing'?

(5.00 out of 5 stars) 2 reviews, 10 likes

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What if you have no natural teeth? I have upper and lower dentures, which make chewing very difficult. I try to eat soft food which does not need chewing much, couldn´t possibly eat an apple like this picture! I have to cut it in tiny pieces first, or stew it preferably.

- Amanda Walker, Moncarapacho , 01-08-16 (Reply)

This has always been a big challenge for me, coming from a family of fast eaters and rushed dinners. But when I focus on the chewing, the results are there. And chewing also slows down the eating process allowing us to stay in the moment and really taste our food.

- Narayani , 01-10-16 (Reply)

If you have dentures, eating soft foods is wise. Do your best to soften it up by moving it around in your mouth and saturating it with your saliva.

- Kimberly Kubicke, Asbury park, NJ , 01-20-16 (Reply)

- Sabrina, Clearwater, FL , 03-08-17 (Reply)