A very important part of the way your body works relates to the digestive process. Ingestion is the process of your food being broken down into smaller pieces that are useful to your body to operate. It's a complicated process that includes enzymes that break the food you eat down into simpe sugars, fatty acids and amino acids that can be asborbed by the body. The first front on the path to digestion is the mouth. When you take a bite of something and chew it that is the beginning of the breakdown of that item both from pressure and some of chemical reaction. The mechanical part of the process is through the teeth. When we chew, we are breaking the pieces of food we eat down into smaller pieces. This is not just to prevent choking, but also to start the digestive process. When your tongue and teeth move the food items around and break them into smaller and smaller pieces until they are almost a paste consistency, making the food easier for the body to use for energy. If you forget to chew well, you'll be swallowing larger pieces of food that will not only possibly get stuck in your throat, but also can make things difficult for the rest of your digestive system. When the larger chunks get into your stomach, it may have a hard time breaking them down into smaller pieces. That can leave the bigger food pieces in your digestive tract for some time and can cause them to start rotting, inside you. This rotting food can harm your intestines. If you chew your food long enough, the mouth will create saliva that makes the food even softer for easier passage down the esohpagus and into the stomach. In addition, this saliva also has enzymes that help the digestive process along. One of these items is called amylase. It assists in starch digestion. This head-start in breaking down the carbohydrates you eat will help your body to get the items it needs from these foods later on. If you don't give the saliva a chance to start to break down these starches, you may swallow larger chunks of starchy foods. These can get stuck in your stomach and intestines and be attacked by pathogenic yeast in the body. This can lead to yeast fermentation which can cause symptoms such as bloating, gas, indegestion and other intestinal discomfort and irritation. Another enzyme in the saliva that is an aid to the digetive process is Lysozyme. This enzyme was the discovery of Sir Alexander Fleming in 1922. If there are bacteria still alive on the foods you yeat, Lysozyme will destory them and keep them from harming the body. All of this points out the importance of taking the time to chew instead of eating quickly. Proper chewing at the beginning of the digestive process leads to benefits all the way through.
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