Eating Order Matters!

Hi everyone!

Today I’m writing about a very important food-related topic: eating order. If we remember that our digestion holds the key to our overall health, we might consider that throwing a bunch of foods in at random may not process as well as having a certain order to things… and that order is light to heavy.

Particularly if you are someone who experiences indigestion, gas pains, or bloating after your meals, consider making some changes in your eating order and see how much better you will feel! (Remember: popping a pill will only suppress symptoms on a surface level- but your body is trying to tell you something bigger than that, so make a real change and reap all the beautiful benefits that come along with it!) I’m going to lay out for you guys what this means and, more importantly, why it will change your health, beauty, and weight!

What are “light” and “heavy” foods?

From lightest to heaviest, the spectrum goes:

FRUIT:

VEGETABLES:

STARCHES:

PROTEIN:

Why should we eat light to heavy?

We never want to back anything up in our systems.  With the wrong order, we can really wreak havoc in our digestive tract and prevent proper digestion of food and full extraction of nutrients from the food.

Fruits are very cleansing, and don’t take long to pass through the system.  Fruit should always be eaten first, and on an empty stomach.  If there is already food in the system, and then fruit is eaten, (like how many people have fruit as a dessert after a meal) the fruit sits on top of the other, heavier foods and rather than digesting, it begins to ferment and acidify. If the fruit becomes fermented, we can’t even extract all the great nutrients from it. So the morning is a great time to have fruit, and 2-3 hours after a big meal. (I have fruit for breakfast every morning with my green smoothie! 🙂 )

Vegetables are a little heavier than fruit, so they are up next.  Vegetables often contain a lot of fiber, which aids in digestion and makes its way through the body pretty quickly. 

Starches are quite a bit heavier than the previous two and can stay in the stomach for a few hours.  Starches include: grains, rice, pasta, bread, cereal, sweet potatoes, and yams.

Lastly is protein. Protein can remain in the stomach for many hours, and is the most difficult food group to digest.  Particularly animal proteins- meat, chicken, fish, dairy- take  long amounts of time to digest and are acidic to boot! That, in combination with improper eating order creates a giant acidic back up and will contribute to your overall build up of toxins.

 Good proteins such as quinoa, seeds, and nuts are not acidic to the pH levels of our bodies, and therefore process much easier than animal proteins.

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Again, happy, proper digestion= better health, clear skin, weight loss, more energy, less signs of aging.. and the list goes on.

Let me know your thoughts, and I hope you enjoyed!

See you soon <3

Amanda

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photo of vegetables: Palosirkka,  Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

photo of animal protein:  National Cancer Institute, Creative Commons License

photo of stomach: SliderBase, Creative Commons Attribution license