Letter from Marilyn
Dear Reader
I hope you find this issue of Natural News full of useful tips and suggestions for getting and keeping you in good health.
Sometimes just small changes can make a huge difference. It is often said that you are what you eat but more crucially you are what you digest and absorb.
So it is important ‘what’ you eat but also just as important ‘how’ you eat and nowadays we don’t often think about ‘how’ we eat. A recent survey showed that the average meal is eaten in 14 minutes, compared to 33 minutes twenty years ago. Two decades ago people took their time chewing while talking to their family around the table. The research showed that most meals are gulped down while reading, texting or even talking on the phone. Fewer than two in ten regularly think about what they are eating.
So, make a point of sitting down and eating your food as calmly as possible. Sit down (don’t eat standing up), chew well and take your time. While you are eating, calm your mind and enjoy the food. Don’t just shovel it in.
It is also important to chew well because the first part of digestion happens in your mouth. Chewing also signals the other parts of your digestive system to get ready to receive food. So if you are not chewing well, the first part of breakdown in the mouth doesn’t happen, the digestive system does not get the signal to prepare itself and the food will drop down to the stomach in larger molecules than the stomach can really manage.
Another advantage of eating slowly is you are less likely to overeat. Once you start eating it takes 20 minutes for your brain to register that you are full. So if you eat slowly you will end up eating less food because your brain will tell you that you have had enough. If you eat quickly, you can consume a lot more food than you actually need before your brain realises.
So eat good food and take the time to enjoy it and savour every mouthful.
Kind regards
Marilyn Glenville PhD