Advantages of eating slowly

To guarantee good physical and emotional health, you need to have a healthy lifestyle and life habits. So much so that, what began for many as a fad, became their lifestyle. It has been more than proven that people who look after themselves and have a balanced diet, have a lower risk of suffering from certain diseases.

When we talk about healthy life habits, we don’t just mean playing sport: we should also pay attention to what we eat and how we eat it.

What is the ideal time to eat?

Eating slowly means taking a minimum of 20 minutes to eat main meals. This is the time our “appetite thermometer” needs to calculate fullness from 4 signs:

• The sign that goes from the relaxed stomach, from the vagus nerve, to the hypothalamus.
• The absorption of glucose, fats and amino acids in the blood stream.
• The hormones released by the small intestine and the pancreas: cholecystokinin, insulin and glucagon.
• The fat cells: leptin and other substances, responsible for switching of the “appetite thermometer”.
  
  
  

What happens if you eat slowly?

1. You feel fuller. If you chew slowly, you boost salivation and grind the food much more in the mouth: these two factors mean you feel fuller. In addition, when eating, your body separates a series of hormones that tell you when you are full; if you eat quickly, these hormones won’t appear and you will have the feeling of not being full.

2. Improved digestion. Eating slowly improves digestion because, when the food reaches the stomach in smaller pieces, it facilitates this process.

3. Helps in not gaining weight. Eating slowly helps you to control your weight, since you don’t eat between meals if you feel fuller. Additionally, as you improve the digestion process, you prevent the retention of liquids and problems with constipation. Chewing properly and eating slowly also helps to control glucose levels in the body.

4. Improves general health. If you eat quickly, you introduce gases inside your body; however, eating slowly prevents this type of gases from becoming absorbed and prevents poor digestion.