How your digestion is processing nutrients in your food?
Aarti LaxmanShare
“The way to a person’s heart is through their stomach,” so the saying goes.
We certainly each have our own relationships with food - from bringing together the entire family around the table, to cultural and traditional recipes, to whatever treats you long for and give in to.
But the process of digestion begins much before your snack even reaches your stomach. It takes many interesting twists and turns to finally give you energy, and for your food to become parts of you.
Another old adage counsels - let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food. So today, we thought to explore the journey your food takes to become you - and what different journeys different foods can take.
Your body, the fuel-master
The common urge would be to equate digestion, and food, with the starting point of the stomach. But the process of digestion actually begins much earlier: in your mouth.
Your saliva contains enzymes which get to work right away, breaking down large carbohydrate chains into smaller molecules. As you chew, teeth, tongue and jaw macerate your meal into pulp, prepping the food for your stomach. When you swallow, muscles in the esophagus execute a perfect Mexican wave (like rapt fans in a bursting stadium; the muscular coordination called peristaltic movement) to transport the pulped-down mash straight into your stomach.
In the stomach, the highly acidic environment makes short work of most microbes that may have sneaked in with your food: good or bad, benign lactic acid bacteria in your curd-rice or more insidious disease-causing germs from contaminated food, they’re all nuked in your stomach. Very few microbes actually make it through alive to the next step. (An interesting aside - what does that make you think of probiotics?)
Digestive enzymes also begin breaking down proteins in the stomach.
From the stomach, the acidic, now more liquidy mixture sloshes down to your small intestine. This is where a lot of the magic happens.
The small intestine is the site of complete digestion; this is where food is completely broken down and all nutrients absorbed. In the small intestine is where secretions from many other organs - enzymes from the pancreas, bile from the liver, more enzymes from the small intestine itself - meet to extract all value from your most recent meal.
The small intestine absorbs all nutrients into your bloodstream. The next step, and the last - is for your large intestine to extract all the water and electrolytes from the indigestible material that enters it.
After you eat a meal, within an hour or so, the sugars from the digested food enter your bloodstream. Fats are similarly transported through your bloodstream and either stored in various deposits around the body, used in the construction of cells, or burned for energy. And proteins are passed to the liver and used to construct new proteins, or broken down further.
Breaking it down: what “nutrients” are
Going beyond carbs, proteins and fats, and micronutrients - what are they each actually made of? Why are carbs and fats from some sources considered healthy, while others are not - if they are essentially the same thing?
Simple and complex carbs
Carbs are essentially long chains of sugars - like glucose, fructose, xylose… The sugars are considered the monomers of carbohydrate chains; they can bond together to form “polysaccharides” - more complex carbohydrates. Sugars are, then, “simple” carbohydrates - it doesn’t take very long or very much effort to digest them. You can reap the energy rewards from sugars in as little as 20-40 minutes - snack on a candy bar and lo, you get a little hit of energy, from a little raise in your blood sugar.
But there’s a downside to the instant nature of this gratification: what comes up must come down, and when it does, your body experiences a sugar crash.
On the whole, prioritizing complex carbs in your meals - by including whole grains, fruits and vegetables - over refined grains and overly starchy foods, helps support your metabolism. Whole foods keep you full for longer, are more nutrient dense, and are rich in fiber, facilitating the journey through your digestive system as well 🙂
Fats, good and bad
Fats are essential for good health. In fact, every cell in your body has a cell membrane that is composed almost entirely of phospholipids - i.e. fats! Fats have several essential roles to play, keeping your body in great condition.
But, again, not all fats are equal. Fats can be saturated or unsaturated. Saturated fats have no double bonds between the carbon molecules because they are saturated with hydrogen molecules.Unsaturated fats have one or more double bonds in their chemical structure.
Unsaturated fats are considered beneficial for heart health as they can help reduce bad cholesterol levels and provide essential fatty acids that the body needs. High amounts of saturated fats can raise cholesterol levels in the blood, increasing the risk of heart disease.
Why stevia is zero calories
Stevia, a very popular plant-derived, zero calorie sweetener, consists of molecules called steviol glycosides (SGs). Interestingly, SGs are formed from one core steviol molecule - and a bunch of different sugar molecules bonded to it.
As the SGs progress through your digestive system, the steviol molecule is separated from the sugars, and let out of your body. The sugars, however, are absorbed into the bloodstream.
How then is it possible that stevia is “zero calories”?
The fascinating chemistry of stevia means that it is intensely sweet, sweeter than table sugar by 200-300 times. Stevia is so sweet that you only need to count it in fractions of grams to sweeten whole batches of dessert!
So the number of sugars that you actually end up consuming with stevia are so few that they practically do not contribute anything to your calorie count - making stevia a very popular choice with those watching their blood sugar.
If you want that piece of dessert but not the sugar rush and empty calories, stevia is a great option for you. And if you don’t want to get your hands on stevia and start experimenting, then we at Artinci are ready to ship our lovingly crafted whole-grains based stevia-sweetened desserts to you!
The Bottom Line
- Your food takes a very interesting journey to become nutrients and energy, starting when you chew food.
- Different enzymes and an acid bath in the stomach completely break down the food you eat.
- The small and large intestines absorb all the “nutrients” and water from your meals.
- All sources of carbs and fats are not the same. Whole grains and unsaturated fats are far superior for health.
- If you want that piece of dessert but not the sugar rush and empty calories, stevia is a great option for you.
- And if you don’t want to get your hands on stevia and start experimenting, then we at Artinci are ready to ship you our lovingly crafted whole-grains based stevia-sweetened desserts to you!