One of the most important aspects of healthy living is chewing the food well. Funnily it is the least discussed and hence a glaringly ignored aspect too.
Role of chewing in digestion
Digestion starts from your mouth. Chewing food helps breaking down food to smaller particles that can be better digested and subsequenly better assimilated into your body. The role of the saliva is integral to this chewing process. It is very important for the saliva to act on the food before you swallow, for the all components of saliva are not present in the digestive juices of the stomach. Chewing thus breaks the food and also makes sure the entire mouthful gets salivated (acted upon by the first level juices).
If you do not help your body absorb nutrients well my chewing hard, however healthy your food, the benefits are cut down sharply. This applies for liquids too. Take it before you gulp. Let the liquid be salivated before it is gulped. A gentle swirl in the mouth does the trick.
Chewing and weight loss
When you chew well your body gets satisfied with much lesser food. This indirecly helps in losing weight.
How do you know you have chewed well? Your food feels almost like liquid when you swallow!