Monday, November 2, 2009

Soup Anyone?

As you enter a restaurant, you have a sit and you order your food.

"Our soup of the day is Ginseng chicken soup with red dates and lotus root......."

Normally, typical chinese custom is that we tend to automatically order at least a soup among our dishes of fish, veges, meat, etc.

There is nothing wrong with such a diet. In fact, it gives balanced nutrition for us. That, we cannot deny, NUTRIRIONALLY!

However, think of it this way....

When you eat, your stomach juices production and secretion is stimulated and they are meant to digest the SOLID food particle under the appropriate pH condition. What happens when you down a bowl of soup while eating, or perhaps a drink, a cup, just right after swallowing your last mouthful? It would dilute the acid juices inside, making protein and lipid digestion "harder" for trypsin and pepsin works their best at pH 2-3. Now, this would only logically increases gastric juices production and secretion to raise back to the optimum pH level for the enzyme to work optimumly.

Yes, that might not be a big problem for those still young but in the long run, it might be a big problem for your digestive system. For those aged ones, their stomach juices secretion might not be that active anymore and thus, might suffer from dyspepsia aka indigestion and bloating.

So when to drink(liquid consumption) and when not to? It is advised that any liquid intake should be consumed at least about an hour before or after your meal. The MAIN point to remember is to better drink when no digestion of "solid food particles" is underway.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

EAT IN FRONT OF YOUR COMPUTER KIDS!!!

I have just recently learnt that finishing your meal last among your friends and family are actually healthier!! How can that be possible you might ask?

As asians, our daily meal must include rice, noodle, etc which contains carbohydrate. Where does carbohydrate mainly get digested?

NO! you are wrong! It's inside our mouth, in the presence of amylase in our saliva. So, I can only imagine that eating(meals of carbs in it) in front of the computer, whether you be gaming or working, would actually be healthier for our gut!

As far as starch digestion is concern, eating while "computering" can unknowingly let us chew longer in our mouth while we're at the computer. This spells better breakdown of starch in our mouth to glucose and other simpler saccharides of starch by amylase enzyme. It decreases the chances of indigestion as our stomach juices are meant mainly for protein digestion instead of starch.

All of us heard before that eating whilst watching tv or while playing the computer is bad for digestion. How can that be true scientifically in health wise if what I have reasoned out above is actually of true fact?

.................Correct me if I am wrong..........
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