We’ve all heard the saying “you are what you eat.” Sure, it sounds great and sort of makes sense – you get out of your body what you put into it. For example, if you drink a lot of alcohol you probably won’t be ready for the NY marathon. Pop! The gun goes off and Drunken Joe takes two stumbling steps and face plants into the street … hardly an athletic performance worth mentioning.

Digestion starts with our mouth and finishes with our intestines. We assume that our entire digestive system is working as intended; but the reality is that it probably isn’t – not even close.

So let’s start with the mouth, typically responsible for mechanical/chemical digestion of the food.

The mouth is responsible for chewing up food and mechanically breaking it down into smaller pieces. I’m not saying that you should chew every bite 30 times, but I am saying that it would be beneficial to chew a bit more than you probably do. When I ate food (a while back), you would swear that I was in a contest or the food at any moment could get up and run away. I took a bite, chewed a couple of times and down it went.

Problem: I wasn’t breaking my food down to give my body the best chance to get everything out of it. Imagine that you had a block of ice that weighed 100lbs and you put it on your sidewalk on a sunny day. It would probably take a couple of days for it to melt completely. Now, imagine taking that same block and shaving it down to itty bitty pieces the size of ant … it would melt in minutes. Give your stomach that same chance at breaking things down in a more efficient manner and don’t be surprised if the gas and bloating begins to diminish, you have more energy, or you get better results in the gym.

The mouth is also where carbohydrates start to break down. Saliva contains an enzyme called amylase. This enzyme begins to break down carbohydrates before they even hit your stomach. So think about that the next time you slam some orange juice, soda, or your protein shake. Even though it sounds a bit weird, even chewing your liquid drinks would do your body some good!

The next stop … the stomach. Be sure to check out Part 2 when I talk about a deficiency that YOU probably have and don’t even know it.

Does this sound like you? You are getting older, you are under stress, often overeat, and/or eat a great deal of junk food. If so, you are probably have a hydrochloric acid (HCL) deficiency (a.k.a. stomach acid).

Some Signs of Hydrochloric Acid Deficiency: