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How many times do you chew your food before you swallow? Maybe 5 or 10 times? But I’m sure it’s not 100 times a bite, like the old wives tale suggests! But it actually turns out that your great grandma was actually right about the importance of chewing. You’d be surprised that when you research about how many times should you chew your food, the answer is much more than you’d expect. When I was researching how to improve digestion and absorption of nutrients, I was surprised to find out that how many times you chew each bite is correlated with how well you digest the food. Proper chewing can help problems with digestion, gas, bloating, constipation and aide in proper absorption of nutrients.
I was very surprised to learn that chewing more with each bite can have that many benefits!
If you’re like me, you probably eat in a rush or multitask trying to get work done while eating and never sit and slowly eat, and enjoy leisurely meals or snacks. Now I always try to take my time and I have felt much better after my meals.
How Many Times do Most People Chew a Bite?
A recent study of 1,000 people found that on average a person chews each bite only six times before swallowing the food. This not nearly enough to ensure proper digestion!
How chewing affects digestion and absorption of nutrients:
Chewing each bite actually starts the whole digestive process.
So, chewing each bite for a longer and more adequate time allows for better overall digestion of the food. As you chew each bite, more saliva is released which helps increase your digestive enzymes. The chewing process stimulates the stomach and it begins producing more stomach acid in preparation to breakdown the food. In particular, the stomach cell linings produce more stomach acid, also called hydrochloric acid, which is essential for proper digestion. Having sufficient digestive enzymes and stomach acid is important as without it, your body is not able to optimally breakdown the nutrients and amino acids from the protein in food.
Chewing each bite into smaller pieces also is beneficial because the small pieces of food can more easily mix with the stomach acid, which allows for the stomach acid to easily breakdown the proteins. This way stomach acid can also better eliminate any harmful bacteria or pathogens in the food as well.
Additionally, adequate chewing also has been found to increase the absorption of fats and fiber from food and make the vitamins and minerals more easily absorbed.
Not having adequate stomach acid is actually very common and most don’t know that it is causing a variety of health conditions. This is primarily because when you don’t have enough stomach acid it negatively affects the digestion of all the vitamins and nutrients.
Benefits of taking time and chewing eat piece of food:
Here are just some of the benefits you may see by thoroughly chewing each bite.
- Improved digestion
- Increased absorption of nutrients
- Reduced diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, nausea
- Reduced bloating and gas
- Helps weight loss
How many times should you chew your food?
According to researchers at Ohio State University, each mouthful should be chewed at least 30 times. They also said that softer foods, like mashed potatoes should be chewed 5 to 10 times.
To increase weight loss, one study found that participants who chewed each mouthful 40 times lost more weight than those who chewed each mouthful less than 10 times.
Well,eat slowly looks elegant and confidence 🙂
Great! 🙂
Very helpful, thanks.
Great article btw!
Thank you 🙂
Why did doctors even start sugesting a number of times to chew? There should not be a number on how many times you should chew your food. Every meal, maybe even every bite of food can have a different tetxure. Also, everone is different, a stronger bite, naturally more or less saliva, condition of teeth etc will affect the number of times you need to chew. Simply chew your food till its broken down. The time it takes to do this will varey greatly depending on what you are eating, some foods dont even need to be chewed! Make sure u chew your food till all the texture is gone, unless ur gonna poop out all your hard earned money! Lol. Think about the corn grain! Its toyally wasted and the huge chunk stresses the digestive track. Same happens with the nutrients you flush them down the toilet
Interesting!
Great article. I am one that has always been a slow eater. Fact, my Dad and I are always the last ones to finish at the dinner table. Fact, I am the last one to finish at my families table🤗
I found that 30 is the magical number. I have been doing at very least 20, so I’m on track…
I have not been one to take supplemental vitamins. When i have tried entering them into my diet, i would get sick. Mostly cold symptons, not digestive issues, so i don’t, as a rule of mine to not take supplements. That by chewing my food completley, I have, since childhood, absorbed enough nutrients and vitamins from my food choices, to sustain my body and digestive system that nothing more is needed. My opion, not that of my physician.
Have a great day, eat healthy and CHEW 30! IT’LL DO YOUR BODY GOOD!🤗
That’s great Janet!
Thanks
how many times exactly will you chew your food??????????????????????????????
I really like this information so thank you ??
Could you cite your source for this statement, please? I’m interested in reading the study: “According to researchers at Ohio State University, each mouthful should be chewed at least 30 times. They also said that softer foods, like mashed potatoes should be chewed 5 to 10 times.”
Look it up online! And by the way chewing your food more than 30 x’s is a must.
wow, this is a great article and really benefeit information
That is really importent thing! thank you for this article 🙂
You know 30 times is not enough to properly chew a coconut,
No! I did not know that’s! Thanks u DANNIGREATS!
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