Part 8 in a continuing series on what really nourishes.

Date:   8/3/2012 12:25:30 AM ( 12 y ago)

January 16, 2023 - Ease Your Digestion with Fermentation -

"... Fermentation ... has been practiced since before the dawn of history, and has been essential to diets in all parts of the world. Ferments are found in abundance in nearly every culinary tradition, and their cultivation is passed down generation to generation. Immigrants setting out on continent-crossing treks brought with them their sourdough starter or kombucha SCOBY, and passed it down to their grandchildren who passed it down to their grandchildren. Locked inside this relationship to ferments are beautiful generational transferences of culinary practices, stories, rituals, and traditions: Korean grandmothers burying crocks of kimchi out in the hills, grandchildren at their elbows watching wide-eyed. Swedish farmers pulling Baltic herring from their wooden barrels, hoping the lactic acid in the fish’s spine was properly activated making for a month’s worth of surströmming for their families. Circles of Peruvian women chewing and spitting out corn in a uniform rhythm, the enzymes in their saliva converting the starch into fermentable sugars for chicha. Ferments are tangible embodiments of culture."[16]*
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Comment: This traditional "chicha" is one fermented beverage that is most probably never going to be manufactured by industrial food processors! ; ~ )

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January 30, 2020 - Fasting Allows Energy Conservation and Reduces Digestive Inflammation -

"... In physics, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant, and it is said to be conserved over time. The body – even though it is not exactly an isolated system – has a certain amount of energy it can produce at any given time. The key to great health is in how efficient we are at using that energy.

You need energy for the digestive system, the immune system, tissue regeneration, physical movement (kinetics), to maintain mental focus, and to carry out many other activities. We all have a certain amount of energy that remains constant in order to do all of these things.

Digestion is a very energy demanding process, meaning that it takes a lot of energy to break down and digest the food you consume and absorb the nutrients into your body. Fasting allows you to utilize stored nutrients without the energy demand of digestion. It also challenges your body to be more efficient with the resources it has.

When you eat food, you also increase inflammation in the body. This happens even when you consume so-called “anti-inflammatory” foods. This is because the actual process of digestion stimulates inflammation.

A healthy diet will produce significantly less inflammation than an unhealthy diet, but both will increase inflammation in the body. The harder the meal is to digest, the more inflammatory activity it will provoke.

In order to heal from an illness, you need as much energy as possible devoted towards the immune system and tissue regeneration. This is why when people are ill they naturally lose their appetite. This is an innate mechanism of the body to influence us to fast so we can produce the proper environment for optimal healing. ..."[15]
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November 12, 2019 -

If you want to enjoy good digestion you may like to know about the digestibility of certain foods. For instance:

"...vegetables take longer to leave the stomach than starchy food or meat. In addition to starch, plant foods contain dietary fiber or roughage—nonstarch polysaccharides (glucose or fructose chains) such as cellulose, inulin, lignins, chitins, pectins, beta-glucans and oligosaccharides. Levels will be especially high in certain rough vegetables like cabbage, kale and collard greens. These components are especially resistant to digestive enzymes, and cellulose is indigestible for humans. But cooking—as well as chopping—help break down dietary fiber into more digestible elements."[14]
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December 19, 2018 - Include a Complete Protein In Every Meal For Good Digestion -

Properly Raised Protein -
Benefits for digestion:
Provide the minerals needed to support proper stomach acid production.
Examples:
Grass-fed beef, lamb or bison;
Pastured chicken or turkey.[13]
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Additional protein sources include fish and seafood.

Only animal products offer a fully complete protein.
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August 8, 2018 - While diets usually focus on WHAT to eat, they tend to underemphasize the importance of HOW to eat. -

Making improvements to the way you eat can make a major difference in your body's ability to assimilate nutrition, and can help you have more energy, a healthier body weight, and can lower the risk of illness.

Here are some tips to help you enjoy your food with less guilt, less bloating, and fewer cravings between meals.

1. Eat Slowly Until You Are 3⁄4 Full

Think of your washing machine. If you fill it right up to the top with clothes and turn it on, it has trouble doing its job. It may even break. The clothes stuck in the middle certainly don't get soaped, rinsed, and cleaned. Similarly, the food in your stomach has to allow digestive juices to penetrate through and through in order to properly digest your meal.

Leaving some empty space helps the gastric juices mix with the food and makes it easier for your stomach to churn your food. This will allow you to get more energy and nutrients from less food.

How do you know if you've eaten the right amount? You should feel fine 20 minutes after eating – even if you walked away feeling a little bit hungry. If you're still feeling hungry 20 minutes later, you probably didn't eat enough.

2. Cup your hands to know how much to eat

If you cup both your hands together and pile your food into that space, you'd have a pretty good idea how much solid food you should be eating at one meal. (Of course, it all depends how high you pile the food!) The bigger your stomach, the bigger your hands will be. It would make sense, also, that our hands evolved to a size ideal for serving ourselves enough food.

3. Balance your fuels

There are basically four food groups and they all "burn" differently:

• Simple Carbohydrates (sugar, honey, fruit) burn like paper covered with oil.

• Complex Carbohydrates (whole grains, legumes, yams) burn like paper.

• Proteins (nuts, legumes, dairy, eggs, meat) burn like wood.

• Fats (avocados, oils, butter, nuts, eggs, cream) burn like coal.

Breads, root vegetables, whole grain pasta, and potatoes fall somewhere in between simple carbohydrates and complex carbohydrates.



Most people need a balance of all four groups. However, protein and fats are critical for life. That's why we call them building blocks - essential amino acids and essential fatty acids. There's no such thing as an essential carbohydrate. Your body can turn fat or protein into carbohydrates if it needs to.

If you're not getting enough protein or fat in your meals, you will feel deprived, even if your stomach feels full. In such cases, you are usually filling up on carbohydrates (either starches or fruits) or, more rarely, just eating vegetables. Depending on your metabolism, a high-carbohydrate diet will either burn up quickly, leaving you feeling drained, or it will be stored away as fat on your body. Neither sounds too desirable.

You'll know your meals are more balanced if you find you feel content for 4-6 hours after eating. You can eat breakfast at 8am and not think about food until noon. After dinner, you're not craving a bedtime snack. If you are craving too soon, then you may be eating too many high glycemic starches. Unless you're a professional athlete, or you are doing a ton of heavy, manual labor, you should be able to eat and forget about it for several hours.

For more tips and a full review of today's most popular diets, view our Diet Review Webinar at:

https://youtu.be/xB7I_u0DSPc


Aloha,

Dr. Carolyn Dean

RnA ReSet
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August 3, 2012 -

From a number of perspectives it appears that "It doesn’t matter what we eat; it only matters what we digest."[4]

Not so long after the idea was presented to me that "a peanut butter and jelly sandwich has all the nutrition that we need" I was introduced to the work of Adelle Davis through a member (or two) in my local Church. The idea of "you are what you eat"[1] came along at that same time. Regardless of the credibility issues of Adelle Davis[2], I had initially ignited my "evolving nutrition awareness" with a sincere lust for the truth of what makes for good nutrition and that passionate flame has continually propelled me into deeper ongoing investigations into all that makes for truly good nutrition. Soon, the importance of good digestion became an essential foundation for developing my criteria for making dietary evaluations.

This essential foundation is referred to in the "Raw Milk: The Whole Truth" DVD I produced with Mark McAfee and Dr. Dale Jacobson (DC) who said "it's not what you eat but what you digest". Dale spoke about the ease of digestion with fermented foods. I have been emphasizing the inclusion of lacto-fermented foods for over fifteen years and I'm so completely convinced of this dietary truth (well-noted by Dr. Weston A. Price) that I intend to continue to advocate lacto-fermented foods for the rest of my life!

Because nutrition is good only if the food that you consume is digested!

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Also related:
"Decade-Long Feeding Study Reveals Significant Health Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods"[5]

GMOs and GMO "foods" are not completely digestible. The GMOs are able to survive the digestive process and take up residency in the gut of their hosts, whether human or animal hosts. Therefore, GMO "foods" do not qualify in my evaluations as truly good nutrition.

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May 18, 2015 -

Digestion is a holistic process that includes the psyche! -

In my personal evolving nutritional awareness over the past couple years (that have transpired since I started this blog on the digestion component of nutrition) I've realized that human digestion of food is truly holistic and that therefore the food itself is only possibly about half of the whole nutrition picture! Imagine that - all the heavy (and consequentially unbalanced) emphasis that has been placed on dietary "correctness" (politically correct nutrition[3] and the object of that microscopic focus is at best maybe half of what all of real nutrition is actually all about! Following are just two of many many references for you at this time to substantiate this statement.[6]

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January 9, 2016 -

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov -

"...What do you do when you eat? Before sending your food down to the stomach to be digested, you chew it. If you swallow it without chewing it sufficiently your organism cannot assimilate it completely. This why it is recommended to chew your food for a long time, until it is almost liquid and disappears in your mouth.

You should also not leave the table feeling completely satisfied; it is better to have a slight sensation of hunger. Why? So as to leave some work for the etheric body to do. Your etheric body is motivated to look for other, more subtle nourishment on a higher level and in a few moments, not only will you no longer feel hungry, but you will feel full of new energy, both physical and psychic."[7]

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March 20th - Happy Spring!

When I was a child growing up I could eat virtually anything and almost never got stomach aches. I don't remember getting really sick to my stomach until I started including alcoholic beverages. (If I only knew then what I now know about hard liquor I think I could have spared myself "needless suffering"!) In any case - by the time I was in my early twenty's I took a sincere interest in nutrition and especially in integrating the new principals I was learning into my diet. In doing so I became more aware of my digestion and how I felt in my gut after eating. Consequently my diet changed and soon I no longer ate as "freely" as I did in my younger years. Years later I learned about bitters. I've used them before as a product. Now I have the opportunity to make my own bitters and I'm really excited about that as I have had this DIY approach to bitters mentally noted on my "list"![8]

21st -

Inquired with my local co-op about the prime bitter herb of gentian and also found an extensive article on it with the following recipes.:

"Lewis, in his Experimental history of the Materia medica (1791), gives this formula; it is one that is often found in materia medicas throughout the period, and on into this century both in Europe and the United States.

1 ounce dried gentian root
1 ounce fresh lemon peel
0.2 ounces dried orange peel

'Simmer this mixture for an hour or two in three quarters of a pint of boiling water [to] make a very elegant bitter.'

Lewis also quotes the official compound gentian tincture from the Pharmacopoeia Londenensis and again, this formula and its variations are very often used, even today.

Macerate the following mixture in an ounce of proof spirit (100 proof vodka will do).

1 ounce dried gentian root
0.4 ounces dried orange peel
0.2 ounces cardamom seed

Shake the mixture daily, and after 2 weeks, squeeze out the liquid and filter. Wine and other spirits can be substituted for vodka. Dose: 1/2 to 1 teaspoon half hour before meals."[9]

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April 3rd -

Inspired (at bath time) with "The Alchemy of Digestion" that I then noted for a search. My search results include the "visual poem":

"LEAF TEAT CURD RIND, 2011 by Elaine Tin Nyo ... presents the transfiguration of grass to a soft-ripened goat cheese. ... the process was chronicled in a slideshow ... during the course of the exhibition, fresh goat cheese made by the artist will ripen and develop a bloomy rind. The alchemy of digestion is considered at several stages: grass by goat, goat milk by rennet, curd by bacillus, cheese by human."[10]

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May 26th, 2016 -

According to "the science of differentiation ...
everybody has a unique digestive process. You're
not here to eat like the next person. And none of this has anything to do with food, funny enough, because it doesn't. It has to do with digestion and the circumstances and conditions upon which it is best for you to eat."
[11]

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October 16th, 2016 -

Both Good Digestion and Digesting Food Well are ongoing requirements for good health and well being. My sense is that better education is needed for both these requirements. I'm responding to that need whenever I see additional contributions that can be made to our Evolving Nutritional Awareness. I believe Ayurvedic Medicine can offer "additional contributions.

"According to Ayurveda, Ojas is the subtle essence that is responsible for life, radiant health, strong immunity, vigor, longevity and overall well being of an individual. The subtle essence called ojas that is extracted from the proper digestion and efficient metabolism of food nourishes the bodily tissues of blood, plasma and lymph, muscle, fat, bones, bone marrow, semen and ojas. Ojas also forms the basic material of the five sense organs, ligaments and lubricating fluids. Improper digestion leads to production of ama or toxins in the body. The accumulation of ama/toxins in the bodily tissues is what leads to disease."[12]

My comment to the author of the site at [12]:

Thank you Yachna very much for this abundant sharing!

I'd like to think that "life, radiant health, strong immunity, vigor, longevity and overall well being ..." would be an incentive for individuals to assure the "proper digestion and efficient metabolism of food" they consume. However, I don't imagine people are being taught the importance of good digestion and the essential contributing factors in either school or at home. The most certainly aren't being taught this watching television or at commercial food establishments. Therefore the need to learn these essentials must be tremendously vast, maybe incalculable? In any case it is wonderful to have your contribution here and to have Ayurveda acknowledged in the beautiful way that you have done here.

Yachna replied:

"...Information like this used to be passed down from the elders to the children and so on. But today people get offended and take advice/ suggestions as an insult. It's not what we eat but how and when we eat. ..."

I smiled reading her reply.
(Maybe before we offer our advice/suggestions we teach people the importance of adopting "The Four Agreements" and encourage people not to take what others say personally! ; ~ )

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Notes

[1]“Ludwig Feuerbach … was the thinker who … coined the well-known expression, ‘Man is what he eats.’ … this conviction emerged from his completely one-sided, materialistic way of thinking. … Significantly, the birth of the science of nutrition occurred during this time and was therefore dominated by views which considered matter to be the only constituent of man and the world - matter, however, whose essence was understood by no one. … ” :

In - "The Dynamics of Nutrition":

http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=9781621511830

[2] Her birthday of 25 February 1904 gives her the King of Clubs as her Birth Card in the Destiny Cards. The King of Clubs is "The Master of Knowledge" and "holds everything needed to be an authority in any area they choose". This birthday also put her on "The Way of Artistry" with a "pitfall" that included "devious".

[3] Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

[4] http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/enzymes/Enzymes-The-Key-to-Longevity/?utm_sour...

[5]
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/08/07/genetically-eng...

[6] First reference -
Enjoy content-rich (food-for-thought) free videos!:

http://psychologyofeating.com/

Second reference -

The down side of digestion includes many "undigestible" things where the physiology of indigestion comes into play during both the active phase of conflicts in the psyche as well as the healing phase once the conflict is resolved.:

http://www.german-new-medicine-healer.com/index.php/gastrointestinal

Especially see: "Function and Malfunction of the Organs of the Human Digestive System". In that section is a reference to "strabismus". Here's a definition:

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/strabismus

[7] http://us11.campaign-archive2.com/?u=36e1929b913daa1ccbf270e27&id=78e3d0caf7&e=cb715dbd8a

[8] http://thesoakedbean.com/2016/03/20/chamomile-bitters/

[9] http://www.christopherhobbs.com/library/articles-on-herbs-and-health/gentian-a-bitter-pill-to-swallow/

[10] http://www.liptonarts.com/digging-deeper/

[11] http://humandesign.wdfiles.com/local--files/start/The%20Differentiation%20Lectures.pdf

[12] https://yachnayoga.wordpress.com/yoga-asans/ojas-tejas-and-prana/

[13] https://unboundwellness.com/improve-your-digestion-naturally/

[14] https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/why-we-cook-and-chop-ferment-salt-and-dry/

[15] https://thetruthaboutcancer.com/how-to-intermittent-fast/
From a search resulted that was inspired by a comment at:
https://drsircus.com/general/navigating-viral-storms-and-avoiding-death/

[16] https://normsfarms.com/blogs/drink-recipes/lacto-fermented-probiotic-black-elderberry-lemonade-soda
and: https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/beyond-beer/chew-spit-brew-how-to-make-chicha-beer/
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Keywords:

nutrition, digestion, fermented foods, lacto-fermented, dale jacobson, Adelle Davis, Genetically Engineered Foods, gmo foods, gmos, medicine, german new medicine, gastrointestinal, disease, psychology, healing, indigestion, undigestible, strabismus, assimilation, Ayurveda, Ojas, anti-inflammatory foods, Fasting
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