Eating for Optimal Health

Digestion...You are what you absorb

Proper digestion leads to optimal absorption and assimilation of food nutrients and supports their effective use and distribution through the body. The foods and beverages we choose to eat and drink can either assist or impede healthy digestion. Millions and millions of people suffer from chronic indigestion and constipation (one usually leads to the other) when a healthy change in dietary habits is often the primary answer to alleviating digestive problems. Understanding the basis of digestive and enzymatic functions is one of the first steps to improving your own digestion and subsequently, your long term health and longevity.

A simplification of how the digestive system works: Imagine a thirty-foot or longer, maze like passageway winding its way through the whole center of your body. This miraculous food transport system is your digestive or gastrointestinal tract, and has numerous connecting points all along its route where food is broken down into simpler chemical forms (nutrients), by specialized enzymes for the digestion and absorption of macronutrients (Protein, carbohydrates, and fats) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). The complex digestive activity in the stomach lasts anywhere from one to four hours per meal depending on the combination and amounts of food ingested. Liquids pass through the stomach most quickly, then comes carbohydrates, then proteins, and finally, fats.

The small intestine (which is actually not small in length) is a twenty-foot section of the digestive tract assigned with accomplishing a very huge task. The unlocking and absorption of micronutrients from macronutrients. Enzymes from the foods we eat support the activity of enzyme function in the small intestine. Over the course of three to four hours, the small intestine, with the aid of the pancreas, liver and gallbladder, breaks down proteins into amino acids, carbohydrates to simple sugars, and fats to fatty acids.

The large intestine is basically used as a holding tank for waste produced by the digestive process. The large intestine, also referred to as the colon, is largely an elimination organ, although vitamin K, water, and some electrolyte minerals are absorbed in this final section of the digestive tract.

A great many bacteria live in the colon, some of them friendly and very beneficial, and others, dangerous and destructive. Incompletely digested food substances can be absorbed by the body as toxins or they can feed noxious intestinal bacteria. Proper elimination of waste and bacteria from the colon is largely dependent upon a high fiber diet, since fiber binds toxins and aids their passage through the colon. High quality colon cleansing products can greatly assist this process, along with gently removing old impacted matter off the colon walls to allow proper nutrient absorption and assimilation.*

Short-term colon cleanses, such as those that only take a few weeks, cannot perform this function effectively. Also, harsher purges for the colon generally are not tolerated by anyone other than maybe by very healthy people with strong constitutions. So make sure your cleanse is gentle but also effective, and that the ingredients cleanse and support the gastrointestinal tract. Many formulas have either very strong active ingredients that should not be taken for very long (or not at all by some people), or they have so many ingredients that the therapeutic value is greatly diminished or lost. Flavorings and sweeteners may taste great, but they take up a significant percentage of the therapeutic value of the formula and in some cases chemically hinder or stop the full cleansing process altogether.

Eating fermented foods with live bacterial culture (e.g. yogurt) and supplementing the diet with probiotic formulations ensures the cultivation of healthy intestinal flora.* Also consider taking an herbal liver cleanse, which cleanses your liver of wastes and toxins and promotes more efficient liver functioning.*