Leanne's Reviews > Power Eating Program: You Are How You Eat
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Power Eating Program: You Are How You Eat
by Lino Stanchich, Michio Kushi , Aveline Kushi
by Lino Stanchich, Michio Kushi , Aveline Kushi
Lino Stanchich is an Italian fellow whose philosophy toward eating is based on his father's experience (and his own) surviving a concentration camp.
His father, Antonio, survived as a prisoner in a German concentration camp from 1943-1945 despite cold winters, poorly heated barracks, inadequate clothing, hard labor, and meager meals (1 cup of coffee & slice of bread in the morning and a bowl of soup for lunch and dinner).
Antonio was 1 of 3 survivors from a crew of 32 men. Antonio and the other 2 survivors accredit their survival to methodically chewing their food; ie. chewing each bite of food at least 150 times and water 50 times. Antonio told Lino that chewing this much profoundly increased his energy level, increased his ability to stay warm, decreased his feelings of hunger, and gave him a strange sense of confidence and courage.
After the war was over, the Stanchich's hometown, Fiume-Rijeka, which was formerly Italy, became part of Communist Yugoslavia. And in 1949, at the age of 17, Lino tried to escape political turmoil, but was captured and sentenced to 2 years in a labor camp. He survived the camp by remembering and implementing his fathers chewing regime.
He emigrated to the United States in 1953 and let his chewing regime fall to the wayside. In 1969, sick and stressed, Lino recontinued his chewing regime to gain back his health, and he wrote this book to share his findings in 1989.
In this book, he makes many recommendations to derive the maximum benefits from your food. The 3 that struck me as the most important were:
1. Chew your food well!
○ Chewing enables a digestive enzyme called ptyalin (found in saliva) to mix well with carbohydrates and break them down (separate the nutrients, protein and starches from the fiber). You have no teeth and no saliva in your stomach, so if you don't chew food well enough, it will pass through your intestines only partially absorbed. In the intestines, any unabsorbed food is fermented by intestinal bacteria which produces gas as well as emotional side effects including irritability, moodiness and anger.
○ Another benefit of mixing your food thoroughly with your saliva is that your saliva is alkaline, as is a healthy body (7.4 on the pH scale), so when saliva mixes with food, it alkalizes it, helping our body maintain its homeostasis.
○ And chewing also strengthens our immune system because it stimulates the release of parotin hormones which encourage the thymus to make T-cells, the protectors of our immune system.
2. Stay relaxed by breathing deeply while you chew...
○ The gland that releases the ptyalin enzyme (the one that breaks down your food, see above) is only active when you are relaxed.
3. Eat approximately 1 fist-sized portion of food per meal (this is the size of a healthy person's stomach). if this doesn't satisfy you, your stomach is enlarged, and you should eat until you are 75% full to get your stomach to shrink back to its normal size.
○ Over-eating causes imbalance in the body because you're taking in more than you're giving off.
○ The body can only digest so much food & the rest is deposited as fat/toxins. When toxins come out, manifest as pimples, cysts, boils, etc. When they get blocked inside, they form tumors, internal cysts, and fatty layers around organs.
○ Over-eating brings more blood to the lower digestive regions, taking blood away from the brain and causing lack of mental clarity.
Other understandable recommendations include:
○ Allow 5 hours between meals (to help the digestive organs function, prevent fatigue, indigestion & gas)
○ Do mild exercises, especially preceding meal times (to increase oxygen flow to cells, help assimilate food to the body)
○ Cleanse yourself before eating by taking a shower, or at the very least washing your face, and changing into light, clean clothes (to stimulate your body and set you in the frame of mind to derive greatest benefit from your meal)
○ Eat a diet based on whole grains (because its high in fiber which assists the peristaltic movement in the intestines, eliminating chronic constipation - a pre-cancerous condition, and its low in fat so it doesn't clog your blood)
○ Eat little/no meat (his reasoning is that human intestines are 4 times as long as those of carnivorous animals, so meat stays in our body longer, creating putrefaction, excess wastes & fats - which leads to cancer. He comments that countries with low meat consumption have virtually no cases of colon cancer)
○ Don't eat icy cold foods (because it causes gastric juices to stop flowing = paralysis in the stomach, cramps, etc.)
○ Eat soup first & throughout meal (because it stimulates the flow of saliva & enzymes in the mouth which help predigest carbohydrates & release stomach's digestive juices, including hydrocholoric acid which digests protein & fat.)
His father, Antonio, survived as a prisoner in a German concentration camp from 1943-1945 despite cold winters, poorly heated barracks, inadequate clothing, hard labor, and meager meals (1 cup of coffee & slice of bread in the morning and a bowl of soup for lunch and dinner).
Antonio was 1 of 3 survivors from a crew of 32 men. Antonio and the other 2 survivors accredit their survival to methodically chewing their food; ie. chewing each bite of food at least 150 times and water 50 times. Antonio told Lino that chewing this much profoundly increased his energy level, increased his ability to stay warm, decreased his feelings of hunger, and gave him a strange sense of confidence and courage.
After the war was over, the Stanchich's hometown, Fiume-Rijeka, which was formerly Italy, became part of Communist Yugoslavia. And in 1949, at the age of 17, Lino tried to escape political turmoil, but was captured and sentenced to 2 years in a labor camp. He survived the camp by remembering and implementing his fathers chewing regime.
He emigrated to the United States in 1953 and let his chewing regime fall to the wayside. In 1969, sick and stressed, Lino recontinued his chewing regime to gain back his health, and he wrote this book to share his findings in 1989.
In this book, he makes many recommendations to derive the maximum benefits from your food. The 3 that struck me as the most important were:
1. Chew your food well!
○ Chewing enables a digestive enzyme called ptyalin (found in saliva) to mix well with carbohydrates and break them down (separate the nutrients, protein and starches from the fiber). You have no teeth and no saliva in your stomach, so if you don't chew food well enough, it will pass through your intestines only partially absorbed. In the intestines, any unabsorbed food is fermented by intestinal bacteria which produces gas as well as emotional side effects including irritability, moodiness and anger.
○ Another benefit of mixing your food thoroughly with your saliva is that your saliva is alkaline, as is a healthy body (7.4 on the pH scale), so when saliva mixes with food, it alkalizes it, helping our body maintain its homeostasis.
○ And chewing also strengthens our immune system because it stimulates the release of parotin hormones which encourage the thymus to make T-cells, the protectors of our immune system.
2. Stay relaxed by breathing deeply while you chew...
○ The gland that releases the ptyalin enzyme (the one that breaks down your food, see above) is only active when you are relaxed.
3. Eat approximately 1 fist-sized portion of food per meal (this is the size of a healthy person's stomach). if this doesn't satisfy you, your stomach is enlarged, and you should eat until you are 75% full to get your stomach to shrink back to its normal size.
○ Over-eating causes imbalance in the body because you're taking in more than you're giving off.
○ The body can only digest so much food & the rest is deposited as fat/toxins. When toxins come out, manifest as pimples, cysts, boils, etc. When they get blocked inside, they form tumors, internal cysts, and fatty layers around organs.
○ Over-eating brings more blood to the lower digestive regions, taking blood away from the brain and causing lack of mental clarity.
Other understandable recommendations include:
○ Allow 5 hours between meals (to help the digestive organs function, prevent fatigue, indigestion & gas)
○ Do mild exercises, especially preceding meal times (to increase oxygen flow to cells, help assimilate food to the body)
○ Cleanse yourself before eating by taking a shower, or at the very least washing your face, and changing into light, clean clothes (to stimulate your body and set you in the frame of mind to derive greatest benefit from your meal)
○ Eat a diet based on whole grains (because its high in fiber which assists the peristaltic movement in the intestines, eliminating chronic constipation - a pre-cancerous condition, and its low in fat so it doesn't clog your blood)
○ Eat little/no meat (his reasoning is that human intestines are 4 times as long as those of carnivorous animals, so meat stays in our body longer, creating putrefaction, excess wastes & fats - which leads to cancer. He comments that countries with low meat consumption have virtually no cases of colon cancer)
○ Don't eat icy cold foods (because it causes gastric juices to stop flowing = paralysis in the stomach, cramps, etc.)
○ Eat soup first & throughout meal (because it stimulates the flow of saliva & enzymes in the mouth which help predigest carbohydrates & release stomach's digestive juices, including hydrocholoric acid which digests protein & fat.)
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