#39 July 2021 Simplify Health News - How Our Food Choices Impact the Functions of the Body

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#39 July 2021 Simplify Health News

How Our Food Choices Impact the Functions of the Body

Simplify Holistic Nutrition Consulting & Functional Medicine Health and Wellness Coaching

Summer has arrived! And the world seems to get the pandemic more under control, we are not wearing masks in Massachusetts, have arrived at possible herd immunity. Even my friend in Germany can go to the gym after months of hard lock-downs. Amazing!!! Looking back on the last almost 1 ½ years, what we all went through feels unreal to me now…. My husband and I traveled with lots of fear (and empty airplanes) to make sure our family members are ok.

We just traveled to the Dominican Republic for a week, which was lovely to be just the four of us together. I used the last year to work on my own health and fitness and continued my studies in Functional Nutrition. What used to be anecdotal is now researched by trusted sources and nutrition is more understood as the center of health and healing. I love it!!!

Functional Nutrition involves all topics of how our food choices impact the functions of the body.

Where food meets Physiology.

Our mouth has a major role in breaking down foods, which comes from the important process of CHEWING!! While we chew, hormones, enzymes, and gastric juices prepare the process of digestion. The longer we chew, the easier the digestion for the rest of the body. When digestion requires less energy, there is more energy that can be used elsewhere. So, chew your food for more energy!!

Many are fatigued these days and lack energy. It has a lot to do with the food we are or are not consuming, but it also has to do with the stress that the digestive system is under. Digestion is one of the biggest stressors we encounter every day.

Chewing has three main functions:

To reduce the particle size of the food.
To expel air and mix the food thoroughly with saliva.
And the third function of chewing is to increase the surface area of the food to allow more digestive enzymes to get to it and break down the molecules.

Well-chewed food glides easily through the esophagus and into the stomach. Chewing can eliminate bloating, gas, and abdominal pain.

For weight loss, the process of chewing is interesting. Chewing is the easiest way to slow down at a meal and receive satiety on much less food. Chewing is a cheap and easy way to increase the health and efficacy of the digestive system and benefit overall health.

Source: Functional Nutrition Alliance

It is time for summer fruits!!

One of my favorite summer fruits are Blueberries.

Blueberries have long been valued for their unique anti-inflammatory phytonutrients. However, research on blueberry intake by humans with chronic inflammatory diseases has been slow to accumulate in science journals. A new study involving approximately 200 adults—mostly women—who had been previously diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) reported to researchers about foods that appeared to improve their RA symptoms, the most mentioned fruits were blueberries! (The most mentioned vegetable was spinach.) This spotlighting of blueberries makes sense given a wealth of research about blueberries and their rich concentration of anti-inflammatory phytonutrients.
Part of what provides blueberries with their spectacular flavors, aromas, and colors is their unique combination of phytonutrients. These berries provide us with 260-460 milligrams of total phenols in just two-thirds of one cup and at a cost of only 50-60 calories. Many of these phenols come in the form of flavonoids. Within this flavonoid group, blueberries provide us with flavonols like quercetin, myricetin, and kaempferol. But blueberries are best known for their anthocyanin flavonoids. Up to one-third of all phenolic compounds in blueberries can consist of flavonoids.
In addition to other phytonutrients including phenolic acids and carotenoids, blueberries provide us with two unique anti-inflammatory and antioxidant phytonutrients belonging to the group of compounds known as stilbenoids. These two members of the stilbenoid family are resveratrol and pterostilbene. Resveratrol is the better known of these two stilbenoids due to a good bit of publicity about its concentration in red wine. (Red wine gets its resveratrol from the skin of red grapes.) Blueberries do contain resveratrol, yet in much smaller amounts than red wine. However, blueberries do have a strong suit in this stilbenoid category of phytonutrients, and that strong suit is pterostilbene.

Order your FIT Test NOW!

The FIT 132 and the FIT 176 Tests test for Blueberries, in case you want to make sure that you are consuming the foods that are Best for you and eliminate the foods that are not! I learned so much from the last test I took. I continue to be amazed at how much better we can feel by avoiding foods that cause inflammation in us. Please read below which 44 foods we added to the FIT 176 Test (all red foods).

I wish you all a glorious summer, with time to be social, time to work on your health to feel your best, and time to relax again and ease your worries. Please let me know if I can be of any help. I will continue to travel to support my family but can always be reached to set up a time to Zoom, or meet in my office once back home.

Wishing you all Peace and Health,

Silke