The gastroenterologist told.
In fact, there is only one reason to chew food for a long time and thoroughly – avoid digestive disorders. The larger the pieces of food you swallow, the longer it will stay in your stomach and the longer it will take to digest it. The consequence of this can be pain in the gastrointestinal tract, heartburn, belching, heaviness, excess gas and a host of other unpleasant symptoms. In fact, this is the only reason why you need to chew your food thoroughly.
The problem with chewing food really exists in old people who have bad teeth and in young children. In adults with no dental problems, excessive chewing is a habit worth getting rid of.
If large food is swallowed by young children, there is a danger of it entering the larynx (windpipe), which may even cause asphyxiation. Therefore, children must always be under control. There are also situations in which and in adults, a piece of food gets stuck in the esophagus. This happens very rarely, but you also need to be aware of this.
The size of food particles is important. And if a person has anxiety related to digestion, it is necessary to find out the reason and take it into account when choosing dishes. For many gastrointestinal diseases, special diets exist, such as diverticulosis you can not eat nuts and berries with small seeds. With this disease, poorly chewed food will be reflected not only in the upper gastrointestinal tract, but also in the colon.
With enteral nutrition (this is a type of therapeutic nutrition with special mixtures), food is quickly digested because it is liquid. This is important, for example, for people with low body weight, with a large deficit in body weight, with wasting. The more liquid consistency of food, the faster it is absorbed. Emaciated people are fed with liquid nutritional mixtures, and sick people are given light food – cereals, broths.
Large lumps of food can get stuck in the stomach much longer than necessary, require vigorous digestion, longer and more intense, symptoms occur, the stomach will contract mechanically, the symptoms listed above will occur – these are heaviness, belching, heartburn and many others.
As for drugs that are actively advertised as a salvation from many digestive problems, you need to understand that, for example, a group of drugs for heartburn is called antacids and such drugs work for one and a half to two hours, that is, very shortly. They can be used if heartburn is rare. That is, these are drugs, so to speak, for this very minute, on demand. And if heartburn occurs frequently, such drugs do not make sense. And the choice of drugs is determined by where the process takes place in the gastrointestinal tract. For example, Gaviscon is a good lubricant for the esophagus, but it has no benefit in the stomach. De-nol capsules, for example, will alleviate the condition if there are ulcerations in the stomach and duodenum, but will be useless for esophagitis (damage to the esophageal mucosa). I cite these examples to understand that the choice of drugs should be meaningful and prescribed by a doctor. All this also applies to drugs for bloating, belching and drugs for other abnormalities in the gastrointestinal tract.
I repeat, thorough chewing of food is necessary for the normal functioning of the gastrointestinal tract. If this is not done, complaints will appear.