I think I finally figured it out!… basically most of us treat our stomach like a garbage can, without any real regard for how it works, and how to optimize digestion. Instead, we turn to the newest drugs to help us either digest better or lose weight taking anti-diabetic medication to control obesity. But if you think about it, it doesn’t make good sense and the reason is because it’s counterintuitive. Our digestion is meant to promote good health, a sense of energy and its the core of how we feel.

I remember spending the summer with Heston Blumenthal, and he was focussed on the gut and the importance of digestion. How we eat is fuelling our mental health and how we feel after a sugar rush, or after fasting. We would all agree that are mood is generally influenced by the foods we eat, and how we feel after we eat them.

“The stomach’s strong muscles act like a blender to
turn food into a useable form”

The Japanese diet makes perfect sense….think about it carefully when was the last time your digestive system got a break and rested….after you eat, it takes about six to eight hours for food to pass through your stomach and small intestine. The foods then enters your large intestine (colon) for further digestion, absorption of water and, finally, elimination of undigested food, which takes about 36 hours for food to move through the entire colon.

The Japanese figured it out with a simple yet nutritious diet all mostly easy to digest. The Japanese figured out food combinations and they have the discipline, simple and practical hand tools (such as hashi) and a very good common sense; they live with nature, respect and cherish it, a value system that is ancient. Without going off on a tangent, of course using a fork versus chopsticks ultimately influences your brain-work hand coordination, and consumption.

Think today, the average daily caloric intake in Japan is 2,754 calories, compared to 3,825 in the United States which ranks no.1 in the world. The food waste in America is disgusting and the saturated fats and “junk food” is garbage. But the problem isn’t calories, it is more about the raw materials and how we consume, when we consume and how we ingest foods.

The idea of our digestion and how it works is all about how we live, think and act and we cannot avoid the idea of the mechanical and enzymatic process, the breaking down food into substances for absorption into the bloodstream. I find myself talking more and more about digestion because so many of us have digestive problems without even realizing it. More so, many people have no idea of how it feels to control their digestion, some refer to as a digestive trance, something I find interesting. The Hebrews thought of kosher, a simple regulation to separate  foods to prevent stomach indigestion and today we know that meat and milk is an unhealthy combination.

I try to emphasize the importance of a vibrant lifestyle, avoiding over-consumption, or eating too late at night and the basics are avoiding raw foods after 16h00 to minimize poor digestion. Some refer to these foods such as greens as fermenting but the human gut microbiota has developed several fermentation strategies to further generate energy. What actually happens is something different and salads (lettuce) induce “abdominal distension is a somatic expression with diaphragmatic contraction and protrusion of the anterior abdominal wall” – the belly swells and bloating occurs.

I ask myself why Japanese typically do not get bloating, and my guess is how they including numerous natural probiotics in their diets and eating salads is substituted with fermented foods including pickles. The classic Japanese meal is about “soft” digestion something I refer to as “easy to digest” foods and combinations of foods in a particular order. The Japanese diet is unique in that we eat mostly soft foods, and including rice which is an obvious digestion enhancer. The rice creates better digestion and most importantly when you eat in Japan, the speed is either very fast or very slow. However, I believe what we eat despite the speed helps us feel better and this is proven by taking a typical day of eating and comparing it to ichi-ju-sansai  “one soup, three dishes.”

The idea of proper easy digestion, eating and finishing with rice, soup, pickles and tea a well known phenomenon ichi-ju-sansai to help define the importance of order and helps define the importance of order.https://mesubim.com/2015/09/17/mesubim-test-kitchen-video-part-ii/

If you recall, Okinawa elders live longer than most other humans on planet earth and it turns out that it’s their diets are mostly based on whole plant foods. Okinawans adopted a plant-based diet, with their meals mostly consisting of stir-fried beans, spinach, mustard greens, sweet potatoes and tofu. We all know these foods lower the metabolism and sugars and are considered traditional, and are less and less popular. But if you visit Okinawa now a days their diet looks hideous and thats being kind – they have the American diet and including Spam!

In Europe, Ikarians in Greece are almost free of dementia and some of the chronic diseases that plague many Americans. A combination of factors explain it, including geography, culture, diet, lifestyle and outlook but it probably has more to do with diet consistency, and pace. The pace at which we eat in part determines how easily we digest our foods. If we permit the stomach the time to digest it has a chance to work better.

Research shows it takes roughly 15-20 minutes for your brain to register that your stomach has reached capacity and eating slowly helps short circuit this. Maybe not immediately because your stomach is just a muscle, and signals generated from the gastrointestinal tract during meals reach the brainstem influencing the timing and size of meals and amount of food consumed. Scientists have known for some time that a full stomach is only part of what causes someone to feel satisfied after a meal; the brain must also receive a series of signals from digestive hormones secreted by the gastrointestinal tract.

The stomach is a cavity, nothing can rot in the stomach, or ferment, because of the presence of hydrochloric acid. The stomach has very few bacteria and one of the main purposes of the stomach is to sterilize food by mixing and churning it within the muscular acid-containing stomach.

But difficult indigestion is about creating a situation where your gut doesn’t know how to handle what you’re putting in it., i.e. too many food variables, “gut confusion” and those funny combinations and not enough food coherence….the stomach works and works to turn, churn and push food into your small intestine and overworks and you feel tired.

The place where you start to feel it is when foods produces gas in the colon, not the stomach, and our colons are loaded with bacteria and acts as the body’s sewage system. As I have been told foods take about 5-hours to reach the colon but for some the intestinal tract is one factor, and neural circuits play an important role: The enteric nervous system that regulates our gut is often called the body’s “second brain.” Although it can’t compose poetry or solve equations, this extensive network uses the same chemicals and cells as the brain to help us digest and to alert the brain when something is amiss. We all know indigestion, an upset stomach creates discomfort in your upper abdomen but it is not a disease, just damn annoying and suffering is aggravating mentally.

Now consider the idea of rebalancing their digestion through consideration of a different approach. After my last visit to Viva Mayr, in Maria Wörth I realized the importance of taking base powder, which is used daily to neutralize the gut, and it helps balance your levels of acidity. And let me tell you there is no doubt in my mind that it works, I swear it is one of those powders that can be a real lifesaver. We cannot ignore those foods which are acidic and or alkaline and its important to find the right balance for your own system.

And base powder is just one of the elements of a meditative cure, an invention of Austrian born Dr. Franz Mayr whose fascination with digestion and restoring patients back to health led him to promote alkalinity in the body.

Mayr uses such basics as: chewing each mouthful 40+ times until food is properly masticated, and never any raw foods after 16h00. Additionally, drinking sufficient fluids between meals, mixed with good exercise and always eating the right foods, at the right times, and avoiding over consumption. Perhaps this is the most difficult task we face in everyday life. The portions of food served in most restaurants are ridiculous and our planet has so much waste it is sickening.

This is one of my challenges, and whenever I talk with the head chef at Viva Mayr (Emanuela) points at me with her eyes and grins about my overindulgence. It’s true, she’s right most of us without even realizing overindulge, it includes terrible food combinations and the timing. I cannot emphasize the importance of how to manage your body’s physical and physiological tempo by simply following some simple rules such as not throwing simple sugars, and lots of starch at one time into your gut ~be easy on your gut and remember you have the ultimate control.

No doubt the stomach is a vessel and it takes whatever you throw at it and tries to deal with it that’s why so many people around the globe are using Nexium or other blockers to help deal with the indigestion. The gut is a fantastic machine, the entry point of digestion and it is reliable and performing.

So, if you want to treat your body as a temple, feed it but also give it a chance to be able to stay relaxed, and always consider how you go about eating. I remember a few summers ago with Heston Blumenthal and listening to him describe the gut as a second brain which is a good way of putting it. Some believe in gut-directed hypnotherapy helps people achieve a very relaxed state of focused attention, called trance, and then targets the dysregulation between the brain and gut by providing specific suggestions to improve communication between the brain and gut.

While eating is complicated because of choices and decisions:

http://mindlesseating.org/faq.php

In order to have smooth digestion and without making it over the complicated you have to think of your digestive system as a cycle. The cycle needs to run smoothly in order to process the food and the nutrients and the waste otherwise it malfunctions.

A day is divided between three parts; morning, afternoon and evening and the significant part is the start of the day. This is your first chance and when most people either eat the wrong foods, or eat too much, or too little the digestion is blurred.

In my view the key to starting your day is to have basic alkaline foods to give your body a chance to warm up the same way when you go to the gym, or when you go outside and run you don’t start by sprinting or you risk injury.

I recommend starting the day with small boiled potatoes soaked overnight to release some of the starch and (no skins) but you have to choose a very good small potato. Skins are all off you have approximately 80-grams and you add some spirulina, omega oils and soft boiled eggs.

Now pay attention, no industrial eggs, or you waste your time, eggs are just as important so be picky about what you put into your body when you start your day.

Eggs “My Way” Spirulina Austrian Potato – soft 4.3 mins Egg & Omega oils

The reason I recommend potatoes there are other foods such as oatmeal which are excellent although it could be potentially more difficult to digest it given the mass. I am not talking about it as an expert but consider potato once you smash it with a fork and you add some oil, soft boiled eggs and you will have a very well lubricated food which doesn’t sound so nice but works really well.

I recognize the importance of easy digestion, and I describe it as starting out gently so you hardly feel the process as the gut warms up, and gets ready to begin your day without any kind of hiccups. The digestion of potato is more about the simplicity of digesting “one single ingredient” or those ingredients compatible, and the key is your digestion works in a smooth and meditative way. That includes limited water during meals and a glass of wine to accompany foods is suitable, while our stomachs have a knack of knowing when you will eat and starts releasing digestive juices immediately. If you start drinking water at the same time, what you are actually doing is diluting the digestive juices being released to digest your food, thereby hindering them from breaking down food.

Not very glamorous, we never underestimate the importance of potato: the United Nations declared 2008 as the International Year of the Potato because of its importance in feeding the poor and hungry.

The process of digestion of the carbohydrate-rich boiled potato begins when you start chewing. The salivary amylase, an enzyme secreted with the saliva, acts on the long polysaccharide units that make up starch, to form disaccharides called maltose. The action of salivary amylase continues until the potato reaches the stomach. The acidic digestive juices in the stomach stop enzyme activity. The potato is now a mass of disaccharides and any polysaccharides that were not broken down by the salivary amylase, but that’s why we masticate it very-very well *chew-chew-chew or mashed helps to some degree. The potato becomes a source of energy when the intestinal cells absorb the glucose, which enters the blood stream and travels to the liver. Some glucose circulates in the blood to maintain blood glucose levels. The body uses the rest for cells and physical activity. After meeting energy needs, any extra glucose stores in the liver as glycogen and that’s the potato’s activity.

At the end of the day, food trance, or meditation is the way your body will feel in the morning when you wake up and feed your body, the first bite; avoid simple sugars, and consider food combinations otherwise risk bloating. Go slowly and feel your gut being relaxed, it is a serious thing and takes time for most people to figure out but once you do, you’ll feel much better.