Chew Your Smoothie

I know it sounds weird to tell you how to eat a smoothie, never mind chew it. It is so easy to gulp your smoothie down but really you shouldn’t. If you want to improve your digestion you need to chew everything including your smoothie.

The reason is digestion begins first in the brain but we will talk about that in another discussion. For this discussion digestion begins in the mouth, not in the stomach. When you chew your food you secret saliva. This helps release enzymes that initiate the chemical digestion of the food.

When you chew you wake up the rest of your digestive organs telling them food is on the way. The stomach starts secreting hydrochloric acid and the pancreas start secreting other digestive enzymes. This is an important part of the digestive process even if you don’t need to break the food down mechanically in something drinkable like a smoothie.

Also if you chew you are less likely to eat too much too fast allowing your digestive system more time to do its job.

So whether you drink your smoothie with a straw,  a spoon or sipped from a glass  be sure you chew your smoothie a bit before you swallow it.