Macrobiotic food chewing
How to chew your macrobiotic food and what are advantages of proper chewing, why to chew your foods so many times?
At first, sorry for my bad english, it’s not my native language.
It’s very recommended to chew your macrobiotic food until it’s liquid. Kushi says, that 50 times per mouthful is optimal minimum. In his words: “100 bites leads to a very strong health, 200 bites leads to an enlightenment”. When chewing, saliva acids are starting to digest the complex sugars (polysacharids) to more simple sugars (disacharids). Then the stomach gets optimally prepared food and the digestion can continue smoothly with acids in the stomach and colon.
Chewing has also another very beneficial aspect. From the energetic view: your mouth works like an energetic oven. You are “baking” your food while chewing and you are activating the earth & heaven energy with every bite. When the tongue connects with the upper mouth it creates an electricity charge into the food. The more you chew, the more you are getting very quality chi (ki, prana) into your food also.
While chewing, the muscles of your whole face are working, stretching and that is very important for the good blood circulation into all parts of your face, brain and because everything is connected, also into the whole body. While you chew your food, the special brain cells that are important for good/clear thinking are activated and getting fresh blood.
Another good impact of chewing is for teeth. Every teeth is connected/related with some meridian and when you chew, they are all massaged and meridians are activated. The energy can flow freely.
Sounds good? So sit, relax, don’t hurry and let your mouth work a little more than you are used to. You don’t need to count your chews. It will make you stressed quickly. Count it for a few times and then you will know from the experience and from the liquidity of food when to swallow. Kushi is sometimes very strict, because he recommends to chew your soups very well too. The benefits are still there ofcourse, but the patience needed for this is much bigger. It’s still very good to chew your liquids if you have the time.
But, the most important is, don’t get mad by all of this, if you don’t chew your last food perfectly. Easy and do the best you can, sometimes it’s twenty times chewing, sometimes it’s hundred. Anyway, I can tell you from my personal experience, the better you’ll chew your food, the faster you’ll get healthy, not only physically, but the healthy mind will naturaly follow - it means clear, relaxed, self-confident, positive thinking full of love and compassion and you’ll start to follow your big Dream!
All is very logical and simple in the macrobiotic world of yin and yang. Just start to cook good macrobiotic foods and enjoy their delicious taste while chewing. Your patience, love, thankfulness will be returned by the Cosmos hundred times to you.
Other macrobiotic articles about chewing follows. Much more professionally written. Enjoy
Chewing Well:
The Salivary Glands Partners for Life
by Kelly Reith, BA, RHN Back
We all know how to chew our food well and that this simple act helps digestion. The litre or more of saliva that our mouths produce every day also aids digestion. But chewing our food well and allowing it to be coated with our mouths’ saliva can lead to digestive magic.
The following words are just a reminder of all that chewing, saliva, and chewing combined with saliva can do.
Chewing
Chewing your food, even without the aid of saliva, can help your body begin to digest your food.
Here are a few examples:
•Chewing well grinds food into small bits, allowing it to be more easily swallowed. Ever try swallowing a poorly chewed food? It actually hurts on the way down the esophagus. You can feel the food tear and scrape your throat.
•Well-chewed bits of food are more easily coated with digestive juices once in the stomach. The body uses less of its energy to digest well-chewed food than hastily chewed and swallowed food.
•Chewing well also allows the molecules of nutrients from the chewed food to be more quickly released and assimilated.
•Keeping a food in the mouth longer and chewing it well allows the food’s flavours to be recognized by the tongue. When the tongue recognizes the flavour it sends a message to the brain, which in turn sends messages to the digestive system resulting in the release of the correct digestive juices needed for that food.
Saliva
Saliva can do a few things on its own as well:
•It moistens the molecules of dry foods so that we can taste the foods when we eat them.
We aren’t able to distinguish many flavours in dry food.
•It binds masticated food bits into a bolus, which we can swallow easily.
•It lubricates the esophagus. In fact, the bolus of masticated food never touches or potentially
damages the walls of the esophagus.
•It is important to oral hygiene. The mouth is almost constantly flushed with saliva, which flushes
away food debris and protects your teeth from decay. Saliva can actually kill some bacteria.
But where does all this saliva come from?
You have 3 pairs of major salivary glands and a few minor pairs located throughout you mouth. The salivary glands create saliva, which is then secreted into your mouth via the salivary ducts. Sounds pretty obvious, doesn’t it? Well here are a few of the less obvious facts about the three main salivary glands:
• The first pair of salivary glands to be considered here are the Parotid Glands. These glands, located just under the ears, produce a serous solution. The oral serous solution is clear and watery, and contains the digestive enzyme amylase, also known as ptyalin. It is no wonder that these salivary glands are the ones most associated with carbohydrate digestion. The ducts for these glands are near your upper teeth.
• The Sublingual glands are located under the tongue and produce a saliva that is primarily mucous. Mucous saliva is thick and gluey. It binds the masticated (chewed) food into a bolus as well as lubricating the esophagus. The ducts for these glands are located on the floor of your mouth.
• The Submaxillary glands, also known as the Submandibular glands, are located near the jawbone, secrete both serous and mucous saliva. The saliva reaches your oral cavity via ducts located under your tongue. The Submaxillary glands and the Sublingual glands also produce salivary amylase.
Partners in Health
You now know what chewing well on its own can accomplish, what saliva on its own can accomplish, and even a bit about where that litre (+) of saliva that you produce every day comes from. Now let’s put it all together:
• Chewing well combined with saliva are partners in digestion. We all know that chewing well and mixing your food bits with saliva leads to carbohydrate digestion but did you know eating protein-rich meals actually decreases the amount of salivary amylase produced? Eating a carbohydrate-rich meal leads to a slight increase in the amount of salivary amylase produced in your mouth.
• Saliva acts as a first defense against bacterial infection. By chewing food well and creating more surface area on which the saliva can act, more potential food-borne bacteria can be killed.
• The bicarbonate in saliva may activate the enzyme cellulase found in raw vegetables. The enzyme cellulase digests the fibre cellulose. Together bicarbonate and cellulase begin to digest the raw vegetables. Chewing well also helps to break down the cellulose. However, the combination of the saliva and chewing helps the body to fully digest raw vegetables and receive their nutrients.
Don’t forget – even the most pureed soup or juiced veggies need to be ensalivated. Swish nutrient-rich liquids around in your mouth before you swallow. The carbohydrates present in the soup or juice can be partially digested by your saliva.
I once read that the mouth doesn’t make enough saliva to initiate carbohydrate digestion so if you’re chewing for that reason, don’t bother. Fortunately that ‘idea’ has been thoroughly disregarded by the many who know better.
Chewing well and tasting your food is just plain common sense. The fact that our body produces a substance (saliva) that makes chewing, tasting, and swallowing easier is a bonus to our vitality. Chewing well and saliva - each have their own merits. It’s when they work together that we can really appreciate the partnership that nature has created for us.
- Kelly Reith, BA, RHN is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist living, working, and chewing in Toronto, Canada. She can be reached at kellyreith@mac.com