Digestion: A Churning Question

Have you ever noticed when you take your trash out on a hot summer day how ripe it gets in there? It stinks, doesn’t it? On a hot day the warm sun shines down on the moist food inside a garbage can and it gets the sugars in the foods and they all begin to break down and ferment and decay and that’s exactly what we do is make trash cans out of our stomachs, rotting, fermenting and decay takes place right inside our own bodies.

How does it affect you? What types of foods do that and how can you prevent it?

Digestion is an issue that many people really do NOT understand. They don’t understand how important it is and how it plays into their health and their proper assimilation of food.

Where does digestion start? Sight and smell begin digestion process. It triggers the stomach to get activated for food that is coming.

So far no food has entered the system but it's very important to get the system ready by drinking 2-3 glasses of water ½ hour before we eat as the body needs digestive juices to properly break the food down. It needs to be water so you are not stimulating the stomach for digestion, juice, coke, milk or any other liquid starts digestion, so just water because then it will rush straight to the stomach in 15-30 minutes. If it has any sugar or chemicals that the digestive process acts on then it will delay it. The water needs to be OUT of the stomach before food enters.

Warm or room temperature water is best or the stomach as to warm it up first and it takes longer.

If you look at the structure of mouth you see biting teeth in front and chewing teeth in the back. This give us an idea of what we are designed to eat, not to tear food and swallow whole but to bite, off what we can chew and then swallow. We are not like dogs. They can handle huge amounts of butter fat and their cholesterol will never rise but if you give that same butter fat to a bunny their cholesterol will go up. We need to chew our food very well; our stomach does not have teeth, so chew your food because there are no teeth in the stomach, so chew your food until it is the consistency of applesauce.

The key parts of digestion begin when chewing our food. Our molars are designed to chew food. It breaks down the amylase that breaks down the complex sugar called carbohydrate into sugars and that is what the body wants for energy so it begins to digest that carbohydrate for that energy source immediately beginning in the mouth.

There is no need to drink when eating because if you have had your water the saliva will flow so abundantly you won't be thirsty at all. If you drink any liquid w/meals chewing is less than ideal and it will slow down the digestive process as the stomach ends up having to do the chewing and it has to chemically chew it and it takes lots longer as it has to mix the digestive juices with the food to break the food down.

The stomach should be done digesting in about 4 hours and then another hour to empty. You should never put any more food in your body until this process is done.

Have you ever left food out all day and then realize it's no good? Well that’s because the warmth spoiled it. In our bodies the temp is higher than room temp so the rate of decay, putrefaction is actually accelerated then you get heart burn and reflex, indigestion and gastritis and gastro enteritis and can cause vomiting and diarrhea.

When you go on a trip in your car do you fill w/gas? Same with our bodies they want a full tank as we begin the day so it can take us thru the day.

One thing all overweight people have in common…….no bkfst!!! When you eat an evening meal you tend to follow that with no activity because the day is ending and we are tired and want to rest, so while our body is trying to rest the stomach is in full gear working and we wake up totally fatigued with no appetite and so we don’t eat breakfast.

Breakfast should be eaten like a king, lunch like a queen and supper like a pauper if at all.

If you put too much food in your stomach it begins to ferment and rot and also from eating between meals. Fluids drank irritates the stomach (called gastritis) can actually trigger your brain into thinking its hungry again. So it’s a viscous cycle of overeating and taxing the system. The stomach is not the only organ involved in digestion, the pancreas, liver, and gallbladder are all involved too!

The stomach is a dynamic organ preparing the food for the small intestine. It’s a under the rib cage and on the right by small intestine. We are designed to digest food while we are awake and upright so that when the food is being moved up and gravity pushes it back down and the stomach pushes it back up and then gravity back down and if you are laying down then this whole process is not working as well. The emptying point of the stomach has a muscle with receptors and tells the pylorus to open so the food can move out but if the food is too big or the temperature is not just right or if not enough acid level developed it will say keep mixing…and finally when the stomach has completely prepared the food so all the receptor sites are satisfied then the pyloric muscle will relax and food will empty out at a small rate as quickly as the small intestine can handle the food then more is given. It's not like flushing the toilet and out it all goes.
Our bodies are designed to run on a time release mechanism. The most important nutrient our body wants is sugar, but it wants it slowly so our Creator has designed sugar with fiber which acts as a sponge to hold back the rush of sugar into the system. Take an apple, you eat it and as it mixes in the stomach it gels up and it's like a sponge. It slowly provides with a little sugar, but if you drink just apple juice it will go right thru like a burst to the system rather than a slow release.

Most heart attacks come in at night cuz they ate a heavy meal….digestion of fat is delayed and the heavy meal is digested after about 5 hours and then the food begins to empty into the small intestine and that is where the fat digestion occurs because the gallbladder releases the bile and the bile mixes with the fat so that it can be dissolved in water and brought into the blood stream. As soon as the fat enters the blood stream when it is in high concentrations it makes the red blood cells stick together and when that happens the person is more prone to develop a blood clot and as it moves to that narrow coronary artery the blood flow stops and the heart attack follows.

Lets look at a man who eats a huge meal and then eats at 10 pm. The pylorus will tell stomach to empty when everything is just right, then you throw off the perfect balance and everything stops and so the pylorus cleans stops and the acid level and particle size has to be just right or it wont release the food, so it has to start all over, its like a foreign body. There have been numerous studies and if you eat every 2 hours starting at bkfst and then take a tube and put it in the stomach to empty it you will still find your breakfast is still in there!!!

Putrefaction fermentation makes alcohol in your stomach.

In the brain stem which is between the spinal cord and the brain which is called the reticular activating system which keeps you awake and alert and on top of things, however its that same part of the system that drives digestion so if you eat a heavy meal and want to fall asleep its because the nervous energy that is trying to keep you awake and alert is trying to digest your food, but the stomach will demand that nervous energy, so its best to go for a brisk walk after the meal.

Eat a good breakfast, wait 5-6 hours before you eat another meal and drink nothing, but water between so your stomach can rest.

Any defect in one phase of digestion hampers another. As an example: eating between meals not only increases stomach emptying time, but also confuses the colon so that defecation schedule may be altered, resulting in constipation.
Nutrition for Vegetarians by Dr. Calvin and Dr. Agatha Thrash, page 93.

Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit and we are to be a living sacrifice so how we treat them is very important! God gave us the instruction and He knows best, so let's do the right thing to keep healthy!