Chew! Chew! Chew! – FOOD and GOD’S WORD

Hello my dear friends,

Did you consider that your digestion doesn’t start in your stomach.  In actually, it starts in your brain.  This is called the cephalic phase of digestion and is triggered by just the mere thought of food or the smell of food and, of course, the sight of food.  This is why your environment really matters.  We do not want to be tempted by what others do or try to make us do or even by what we see them do.  However, today, I want to talk about the second phase of digestion which is the mechanical phase of digestion.  It starts in your mouth and continues through your stomach.

Yes, the mechanical phase of digestion begins in your mouth with the chewing of your food.  The more you chew your food, the smaller it becomes and the more time your saliva and oral enzymes have to work on breaking this food down.  Chewing your food thoroughly is one of the most important actions you can take to improve your digestion.  Not only this, it helps you to feel full sooner, puts less stress on your body to digest the food and helps you to absorb more nutrients from your food.  It is such an easy step to take, yet few doctors even mention.  Of course, a dentist knows this, but how often does the dentist remind you to chew your food well.  We all take this basic action for granted.

In my book, I recommend the action step to chew each bites of food 30 times;  chew is so  much that is becomes a liquid.  This will makes the chemical digestion in your stomach even more powerful and will lead to further nutrient absorption.  Do not sneer at this basic information.  Low protein intake is linked to depression and hormonal issues; it is linked to poor wound healing and poor blood sugar regulation.  Even if you think you are getting enough protein, if your body does not break it down to its amino acids, you will not have the protein absorption that you are trying to achieve.  Chewing your food well helps to ensure more breakdown of the protein to its basci parts so that your cells are able to use them, so that protein synthesis will occur, so that wounds heal, so that the body will repair on a daily basis, and truly, to help you deal with depression, hormonal issues, sleep issues, energy levels and a host of other struggles many face.

Let’s talk more about chewing.  It is not enough to chew your food to promote good health.  Yes, we need to do many others things such as drink water, exercise, sleep, have good relationships, evacuate our bowels and clear clutter from our lives, but we also must chew on something else.  WE MUST CHEW ON GOD’S WORD.  Yes, we must be in God’s Word daily, morning and night.  Just as we chew our food on several occasions during our day, we must daily have God’s Word as a source of nourishment.  It is not enough to think to oneself, “Yes, I know what it says; Yes, I remember what I  should do; Yes, I heard that before.”  We must feed ourselves His Word and let it nourish us.  We must “take and eat” His word.  The Lord says in the Psalms to “taste and see” that He is good, but now we consider that to “taste and see” that He is good, we must “take and read” His word and ponder what it says; chew on it, relish it; act upon it; believe it; speak it to yourself.  This requires a decision.

Fortunately, we do not have to tell our stomach and our small intestines and the rest of our body what to do after we chew and swallow, but we do need to make the decision to read God’s Word, think about what it says, apply it to our lives, accept it, break it down to understand it and act upon it.  We must relish it as if it was the last morsel of nourishment that we will be given.  It is truly something to “taste and see that He is good”.  Let His word fill you up; let it nourish you; let it energize you; let it be your source of strength; let it be your self-discipline; let it be your “protein” for your “soul”.

God’s word is pure; there is not clutter in it; nothing we should ignore;  We might need to ignore the dessert table, escape the gossip group and truly the luscious lusts of the flesh, but we must be addicted to God’s word.  Spending time in it is part of your health.  You might eat right, exercise well, sleep soundly and work hard, but if you are not in God’s Word, you are malnourished.  There is not substitute for their protein intake, but even with the intake, your must take time to chew it.

So, my friends, be blames today, by chewing your food 30 times and chewing God’s Word for let’s say…30 minutes.  If you are still hunger, chew some more.  The table He sets before you will always have just the right “amino acids” that you need.

Seek peace and purse it my friends.  Seek peace and purse it by pursing God’s Word.