Embrace Chewdaism: Health Benefits of Chewing Food
What is Chewdaism? Good question! It is a theory or movement that supports that chewing food slowly and thoroughly delivers health benefits.
A.J. Jacobs introduced this new theory on his new book, Drop Dead Healthy. Where he explains how we are a nation of under-chewers. And, let me tell you, he has a point. There are three main health advantages about chewing your food the way we are supposed to.
First of all it gets us more nutrients because it improves the digestion process and reduces the stress on the gastrointestinal tracts. More importantly, it slows down our eating, which means you eat less. This is because it takes about twenty minutes for our brain to realize that we are full, so basically, the slower we eat, and the less we eat. So chewing food slowly and properly helps you to lose weight! Chewdaism also may help you to get rid of bad breath.
Jacobs explains that Chewdaism is a kind of food mindfulness. There is actually a group on Internet, more like a movement I’ll say, who proclaims that you should chew your food from 50 to 100 times per mouthful. “They say chewing will cure stomachaches, improve energy, clear the mind, cut down on gas, and strengthen the bones”. My father-in-law who has a healthy and fit body chews his food 30-40 times per mouthful. I usually chew much less than that. Jacobs explains. “I found that 50 chews per mouthful was a bit absurd. It takes you a day and a half to eat a sandwich. But 12 to 15 chews is a good goal for me.”
Jacobs himself characterized those claims as overblown but he did support many advantages of chewing your food more slowly, such as you can wring more nutrition out of your food and it forces you to eat more slowly therefore, you eat less, so in other words, chewing more may make you lose weigh.
Embrace Chewdaism: Benefits of Chewing Food
[Last Updated on June 10th 2014]
