Chew Your Food, Y'all

I know at this point you guys are going to think I'm obsessed with poo since I've seemed to mention it at least every other blog, but I'm not. I mean, I do find it a little fascinating from a nutritional standpoint, but beyond that, I'm really not about the poo.

But this weekend I was watching the BBC (because that's what you watch when you're not into televised sports...British television) and they had a little mini-marathon of "You Are What You Eat," a show where a well known nutritionist visits extremely obese people and drastically clears out their cabinets of all processed food and shows them how to eat right. Along with this stripping down of their daily menus, the overweight individuals also receive a current health assessment, including a poo analysis. In one person's poo analysis, the doctor remarked that she found whole chunks of food, indicating that this person needed to chew his food much more thoroughly.

Hm. This got me to thinking about how I eat. I always have been a slow eater, but how well do I really chew my food?

I admit that, since watching these episodes, the last couple of times I sneaked a little longer peek at my poo. Sadly, I found that I do not chew my food as thoroughly as I should. ('nuff said.)

So what? What's the big deal? So a couple of culinary items come out whole. Is it really an issue? Well, I've found out that, holy cow, yes it is. And here's why: With larger food particles, your stomach acid has to work so much harder, which isn't good, but not nearly as bad as this next thing. Did you know that chunks of food can actually poke themselves through your gut walls and go straight to the bloodstream?!? Eeeeeaaaaggghhhhh...I can't IMAGINE little rices and corns just taking a shortcut through my internal organs. And then, because the blood doesn't recognize these larger pieces, it thinks they're diseases and sends your immune system after them. THEN you end up getting all kinds of funky side effects like headaches, joint aches, muscle aches, and bloating. (All this info can be found at www.bottomlinesecrets.com, from expert Trent Nichols, MD.)

Now, what makes your stomach and intestines more permeable is non-steroidal anti-inflamatory drugs. AKA aspirin and ibuprofen. (I'd like to take this opportunity to throw out a "neener" to those in my family who think I'm neurotic for not taking ibuprofen for minor ailments such as headaches and muscle aches.) Golly, let's examine this...food particles are in my blood stream. This gives me a headache. I take an aspirin. This causes my digestive organ walls to thin out. So another chunkie gets into my blood stream. This gives me a headache. I take an aspirin...Yeah. I don't begrudge y'all your meds, but I think I'll brave my next headache au natural.

See? You can learn a lot from your poo.