Tips for better digestion

Everyone can benefit from taking steps to support their digestion. Your digestive system needs to be able to properly break down food in the mouth, stomach and small intestine. It also needs to be able to absorb vitamins, minerals, fats, carbohydrates and proteins in the small intestine. If your digestion is impaired in some way, even the most nourishing foods won't be sufficient to support your optimum health.

Here are some tips on how you can support good digestion.

Avoid drinking for 30 minutes before meals, during meals, and for 45 minutes after meals. Drinking liquids with a meal increases the volume of contents inside your stomach, leading to slower gastric emptying (emptying of churned up, semi-digested food into the small intestine), which can leave you feeling bloated. In addition, drinking with meals raises the pH of the gastric juices produced by your stomach (i.e., makes them less acidic), reducing their ability to break down food inside our stomachs and hampering digestion.

I recommend aiming not to drink with meals 30% of the time, and increase from there. On special occasions like birthdays, family celebrations, and when dining out, don't stress - you can drink with your meal. It's what we do 90% of the time that determines our health.

Smell your food before you dig in! This activates the first phase of digestion, cephalic digestion, which initiates secretion of that all-important hydrochloric acid in the stomach. Cephalic digestion is triggered purely by sights, smells, and our feelings/thoughts about eating. Think of when you arrive home or at a friend's, smell something delicious being cooked, and your mouth starts to water and your tummy rumbles. This is cephalic digestion kicking in!

Eat while sitting down and feeling as relaxed as possible, without distractions (no phone, tablet, computer or tv). Avoid eating on the run, while standing up, and when feeling stressed. If you are stressed and need to eat, take ten deep breaths while seated, inhaling all the way down to your belly and slowly exhaling, before you begin eating. Good company and conversation also enhances digestion.

Think of trains when you eat: choo, choo, chew!

Eat fruit on an empty stomach. The reason is because fruit passes through the digestive system much more quickly than other foods. Avoid eating fruit right before a meal and for two to three hours after meals. That said, bananas and apples are ok eaten with oats, muesli or millet for breakfast because these fruits do not ferment as readily as other fruits. 

Drink enough water (away from meals) because protein, carbohydrates, minerals and some vitamins require water to be absorbed. A guideline to follow is, drink 30ml of water per kilo of your body weight each day, and more if you are sweating.

30ml x your weight in kilos = minimum amount of plain water you need each day (black tea and coffee don’t count as water because these are diuretics and dehydrate you.)

Support your stomach acid. In the modern world, it is common for people to show signs of having insufficient stomach acid (hydrochloric acid). This makes it harder to digest and absorb protein, and protein is so important for growth, tissue repair and mental health. People who have experienced significant stress, the elderly and vegans and vegetarians often have symptoms of insufficient stomach acid. This is because these groups are at higher risk of zinc deficiency, and zinc is needed to make stomach acid.

You can support your gut's production of stomach acid by not drinking near or with meals and taking a bioavailable zinc supplement.

Finally, having regular bowel motions is another important aspect of digestion. If you aren't having a bowel motion every day, metabolic wastes such as hormones can return to the blood, where they can circulate and cause problems like acne, PMS and even eventually contribute to cancers.

Getting plenty of fibre in your meals supports regular bowel motions. Fibre is found in all green vegetables, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, oats, wholegrain bread, apples, lentils, beans, nuts, seeds, figs and prunes. 

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