Save Money, Manage Weight, Let Your Body Work as Designed: Chew
I remember as a teenager eating embarrassingly large quantities of food. Huge tubs of ice cream included. My brother and I could together polish off a six quart of the cheap stuff in one sitting. We were not over weight, but we were definitely eating way more food than we needed to. Fortunately our metabolism allowed us to somehow survive our teens without turning into ‘late Elvis’ impersonators.
At one point in time when I was in high school my dad told us at the dinner table, “Your great-grandfather used to chew his food 100 times per bite.” We thought that was about the most insane thing ever spoken about eating. Food was to be enjoyed not for its tastes, nutritional value or mouth-feel, but instead it was to be enjoyed in volume. Turns out that my dad was right and my great-grandfather was doing some good things when he took some time at dinner and actually chewed food. I’m not suggesting you chew your food 100 times per bite, but I am recommending that you chew your food more than most Americans (and possibly other nations if they also wolf it down). Say, maybe, twenty-five times per bite. Or, if you’re ‘hardcore’ you can chew fifty times per bite. But why would you do this?
Your body’s saliva glands produce (surprise!) saliva. Saliva does several thing:
- It keeps your mouth and other parts of your digestive track moist
- Saliva helps break down carbohydrates
- Saliva neutralizes some acids in your mouth to reduce tooth decay
- Saliva helps to prevent bacterial growth in your mouth 1
Thus the nutritional value of your food to your body may actually be increased significantly as your saliva helps break down the various foods in your body as it digests.
By chewing your teeth also break down the other non-carbohydrate based foods so that the other parts of your digestive track can maximize their use and absorption of various other elements that your body needs. The other thing this does is buy some time for your stomach to feel full. That fullness will come sooner in volume than if you just shove the food down your throat. By being full sooner you may very well save on food because you’re eating less!
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