Conscious Eating: Always Eat according your Digestion Power
In HOLISTIC NUTRITION we take care, that we can tolerate and digest our food. this means Conscious Eating. You only eat and drink, what your body tolerates and completely digests. For this, you have to choose food items, dishes and drinks, which fits to our current Digestion Power, so your body fully utilizes the food and get the nutrients your body needs. Otherwise there will be maldigestion with serious health problems.
Conscious Eating according to your individual needs
You are unique and so is your digestive power. It is influenced by individual factors. This includes the eating habits of your ancestors, which genetically determine which digestive enzymes and juices you can produce. This also determines the range of foods, dishes and drinks that you can digest. Your personal lifestyle and eating habits also influence your digestive power. Conscious Eating is therefore an individual matter.
Conscious Eating: Check your Digestion Power
For Conscious Eating you have to understand the digestive processes of your body in general. You also need to know about your personal digestion capacity. This way you can better adjust your food to your digestion power. Here you will find a SELFTEST, where you can check your current digestion power and then follow the nutritional recommendations. If you have any severe health problems, you better consult an experienced holistic doctor or therapist as well. Make the test again and again and remember the questions. Also feel what’s going on in your digestion system.
Conscious Eating: Eat according to your Digestion Power
Decide, if a you should eat a sumptuous meal or a soup according to your digestion power. Your food should give you energy and lightness. Tiredness and heaviness after eating are always an unmistakable sign that the food was too difficult to digest. When you are healthy and full of energy, your eating habits are optimal. When you are exhausted, weak or sick, follow the recommendation for “Easy to Digest” food and avoid those, which are „Difficult to Digest“. Find your personal diet.
Learn about Perfect Digestion
The digestion process starts already, when we just think, expect or prepare our food. through the release of neurohormones in our brain, which induce the production of digestive enzymes and juices in our body. These enzymes and juices break down our food into its components: proteins to amino acids, carbohydrates to sugar molecules, fats to fat acids.
In the end these nutrients along with minerals, vitamins and water are absorbed by the intestinal mucosa into our blood and lymphsystem, while waste products are removed in the large intestines. The digestive process starts in our mouth with saliva and continues in our stomach and small intestines, where digestive enzymes and juices are produced by intestinal cells, pancreas and gallbladder.
Cookes vegetables are best digested
Learn about Maldigestion
Poor digestion leads to serious digestive problems and diseases such as allergies and autoimmune diseases. According to Ayurveda, food items, which are not digested properly, form sticky particles, which create slags. This slags are coating our intestines and disturb the growth of good intestinal bacterias and allow bad bacterias and parasites to grow. This causes inflammation in our intestines, especially the small intestines. Over time the mucosa gets destroyed and. With Conscious Eating we can prevent the development of slags in the body.
Weak Digestion caused by Stress, Poor Eating and Hyperacidity
Most of the time, our natural strong digestive power is weakened by chronic stress. Also wrong eating habits like eating too quickly, too late, the wrong food, too much and too often has a negative influence on our digestion system. Hyperacidity caused by a diet, which contains too many acidic foods, creates an acidic environment, where our digestion enzymes doesn’t work properly. Conscious Eating is about counteracting acidity and is focussed on alkaline and deacidifying food items.
Conscious Eating: Adjust your Food with Changes of your Digestion Power
The production of digestive enzymes and juices can change. An infection or a previous meal, which keeps the digestion busy for hours, can weaken the digestive power. On the other hand, Certain dietary supplements or spices such as pepper, ginger or cinnamon can quickly stimulate your digestion. Climate and seasons also affect digestive activity, which is stronger in summer and hot temperatures, and low in cold seasons or on icy days. Conscious Eating is about adjusting your food to your digestion power.
Know about your current Digestion Power
Because your digestion power is changing, you have to ask yourself about your current digestion before any meal. Conscious Eating requires to know about your digestive capacity. To come to know about your digestion power, you need to ask yourself some question, which you will find below in the Selftest. The state of your tongue and your digestion habits will give you the right answers about your digestion.
Follow the Diet of your Ancestors
The Holistic Diet is based on the food habits of our personal ancestors, but only if the digestion power is strong enough. Your digestive power, including your microbiom, has been formed over centuries by the dietary habits of your ancestors – with specific enzymes for cereals, dairy products, meat, fish or eggs. This digestion pattern is stored in your genes. Especially in remote rural areas like India, Asia, Africa or South America, people are eating the same food like thousand of years ago and don’t have any digestion problems, only when they eat too much or something unusual.
Conscious Eating: Only Good Food Quality
In our modern world, where plants have largely been genetically manipulated and farming and livestock farming are completely unethical, we have to carefully check about the quality of our food. Conscious Eating means to choose food items of good quality only, like organic fresh foods without genetic manipulation and unethical production. This requires accurate research, where to get best food, also when it comes to eat in restaurants. Ideally you get your food from a local market directly from the producer.
Always good: „Easy to digest“ food items
According to the concept of Holistic Nutrition in Ayurveda all warm, soft boiled meals like soups, porridge, stews and mashes from plants are „EASY TO DIGEST“. Organic food items, which are fresh, tender and ripe, like fruits and vegetables, are also a good choice. Herbs and spices have a digestive effect and should be part of every meal.
Better to avoid: „Difficult to digest“ food items
According to the concept of Holistic Nutrition and ayurvedic teachings, what is compact, hard, sticky, raw and cold, is „difficult to digest“ like milk and milk products, cereals, meat, fish and eggs. Not easy to digest are also certain food combinations like milk or milk products with fruits or meat/ fish/ eggs. Stay away from food with too many components and/ or artificial ingredients or „ready made food“ in general.
Conscious Eating is alkaline and deacidifying
In Holistic Diet we focus on deacidifying and ALKALINE FOOD ITEMS. This ranges from sweet fruits, vegetables, cereals, lentils and natural sweeteners to fresh herbs and spices with bioactive and bitter substances. Avoid acidic vegetables such as tomatoes like from night shade families and fruits and juices from citrus fruits, berries (except blueberries), pineapple or kiwis, as well as carbonated sodas, vinegar, fermented foods like sauerkraut, alcohol, dairy products and especially industrial products from refined wheat.
Selftest for proper digestion
- you experience excellent health
- your tongue is free of plaque
- you empty your bowel every morning without any problems
- your faeces is shaped, loose and medium firm
- your faeces is light to dark brown in color
- your faeces has no (bad) smell
- you hardly need any toilet paper
Great – you can keep on eating like before Just make sure you don`t have any other health issues. In case of any complaints, you better follow the recommendations for nutrition in weak digestion power below.
Selftest for weak digestion power and indigestion
- your tongue is often covered
- your tongue is thickened and the teeth marks can be seen on the edge
- your nose is slightly to moderately congested in the morning
- you often get tired right after eating
- you have less appetite
- you suddenly gained weight even though your diet has not changed
- you develop excessive gas, especially after eating
- your gas smell foul
- you have constipation at least for 2 days
- you faeces is hard and difficult to bring out
- you defaecatation is incomplete
- you have very soft to liquid faeces
- your faeces smells foul
- you need a lot of toilet paper to clean
- your skin has lots of clogged pores
Ideal nutrition for weak digestion power
The test shows that your current digestion power is weak. Now you really need absolute light food and healthy eating habits. Eat slowly, chew well, eat in peace, eat several small portions and eat the last meal of soup or cooked vegetables around 6-7 pm. Stay on
- warm cooked food with lots of liquids in soup-style
- freshly cooked food
- pureed food
- no meat or fish or egg
- cooked soft porridge or pudding
- alternative cereals like quinoa, amaranth, tiger nuts, buckwheat, millet, rice flakes and chia seeds
- little raw cane and coconut blossom sugar, stevia, agave or pear syrup or date, rice or maple syrup
- seeds and kernels such as sesame seeds, chia- and flossers
- oat-, rice-, almond- or goat milk
- dried fruits like raisins, figs and dates
- sweet ripe fruit or compote of apple, pear, honeydew melon, mango, papaya, grapes, cherries, blueberries
- boiled soft rice, millet and quinoa
- rice-, glass- or lentil noodles, rarely gluten-free noodles
- cooked vegetables such as fennel, zucchini, carrots, cauliflower, beetroot, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, broccoli
- stews and soups with a lot of vegetables, possibly with little meat or sea fish
- cooked soft mung beans and red or yellow lentils
- chicken or beef broth
- sesame- and chia seeds
- teas such as fennel-anise-caraway tea, liquorice root tea, ginger tea and bitter or spicy herbal teas
- digestive spices and herbs such as pepper, ginger, cinnamon, chilli, garlic, nutmeg, paprika, pigment, turmeric, asafoetida, galanga, coriander, caraway, cumin, garlic, chervil, lovage, thyme, rosemary, basil, wild garlic, fenugreek seeds, marjoram, oregano, dill, fennel, cardamom and anise
Food Items to avoid with weak digestion power
- anything solid, hard, compact, and sticky
- what is unfavorably combined, such as milk and dairy products with fruit, meat, fish and eggs
- drains, and cereals products such as wheat, oats, rye, spelled, barley, bulgur, couscous and seitan
- hard bread
- fermented dairy products like cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt and kefir
- fermented solid food items like Tofu
- meat in general, especially steaks
- fish and seafood
- protein
- chocolate
- bananas
- unripe hard fruit
- raw food
- nuts
- hydrogenated fats, including margarine
- manufactured cakes and biscuits
- manufactured sugar and sweets
- ready made meals and fast food or all kinds
