Unless we are sick or on some special diet we never consider what happens to the food we eat – how it’s processed and absorbed by our bodies. We think of it as chewing at one end and getting rid of it at the other end.

A lot takes place as soon as food enters our mouths and is swallowed. Consider the process of chewing the food in your mouth. The saliva that’s produced begin to break the food down into smaller parts for your stomach to process. After it’s swallowed, food is further broken down into even smaller particles in the stomach to be absorbed through the walls of your intestines.  And so the cycle goes until the waste that’s left over is excreted . . . . all within a 24 hour cycle.

The order in which food is eaten is important for proper digestion to take place and for the body to use it as it sees fit. Fibrous fruits and vegetables are quickly digested so they should be eaten first. I call them the street cleaners since they help to flush out any residue from earlier meals and prepares the digestive track for the next meal. If you eat fruits after other types of food it will be processed last and since all other foods are slower to process . . . .  your entire digestion is now slowed to a crawl.

The next group of foods eaten should also facilitate proper digestive flow. For a further information on how food should be eaten go here.

Keep carbs for last: Eating food in order can help diabetics

NEW YORK, June 24 (UPI) — People with type 2 diabetes and obesity who eat protein and vegetables before carbohydrates show lower post-meal glucose and insulin levels as a result of consuming food groups in that order.

Researchers think that suggesting an eat-this-then-that rather than an eat-this-instead-of-that approach to diet control may be a more effective way for type 2 diabetes and obese patients to keep their disorders in check.

“Carbohydrates raise blood sugar, but if you tell someone not to eat them — or to drastically cut back — it’s hard for them to comply,” said Dr. Louis Aronne, a professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, in a press release. “This study points to an easier way that patients might lower their blood sugar and insulin levels.”

The small study consisted of 11 people eating a meal of ciabatta bread, chicken breast, lettuce and tomato salad with low-fat dressing, steamed broccoli with butter and orange juice twice, on a separate days, a week apart.

The first week, researchers had participants eat carbohydrates, ciabatta bread and orange juice, first, and then 15 minutes later eat everything else for protein, vegetables and fat. The second week, participants ate protein, vegetables and fat first, waited 15 minutes and then ate the carbohydrates. Glucose levels were taken for all the participants 30, 60 and 120 minutes after each meal.

Glucose levels proved to be much lower at the 30, 60 and 120 minute checks, by 29 percent, 37 percent and 17 percent, when vegetables and protein were eaten before the carbohydrates, researchers said.