Here's Why You Want To Chew Your Smoothies

photo credit nancy s. mure

The ever popular smoothie can be a highly nourishing way to start your day. However, a smoothie can only be enjoyed under one healthful condition: that it's eaten correctly. Yes, "eaten."  We don't think of a smoothie as something we eat or chew. Rather, we think of a smoothie as something we sip or drink, and in doing so, we bypass a very important part of digestion.

Here's how it works; the process of digestion begins in your mouth. As a rule, the more saliva you can incorporate into whatever you eat, the easier your digestive process will be. Thus, chewing your smoothies or at the very least, swishing them through the saliva in your mouth before swallowing, goes a long way toward increasing your food's absorption, assimilation and transit time through the intestine by ninety percent. On the whole, chewing throughly also gives the stomach a much needed break. 

Studies have shown that chewing food, your smoothie --- everything throughly has other health benefits such as higher retention of nutrients. Dr. Richard Mattes (CQ), professor of foods and nutrition at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. stated: "The more you chew, the less is lost and more is retained in the body." This is because when you eat food without chewing throughly you're sending food into the stomach partially broken down, giving the stomach the burden of having breaking it down. While the stomach does its best to break down your food, it can do an incomplete job. This is the main cause of backup and putrefaction in the intestine -- a major cause of delay the transit time of your food and chronic indigestion.

Food temperature also factors into this equation. When ice or frozen fruits are used to prepare your smoothie, and they bypass being chewed in the mouth, the temperature of the smoothie remains quite cold. A cold smoothie entering the stomach without being warmed in saliva can contribute to hyperchorhydria (low stomach acid), which can also hinder the stomach's ability to break down food. 

Efficient digestion is the most important aspect of overall health.Unfortunately, we often don't give our digestion the thought it deserves until there are signs of discomfort such as bloating, gas, stomach pain or GERD. That being said, chewing properly and throughly goes a long way toward preventing any digestive burden, even if our food is a smoothie.