Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Raw Smoothies?
When we experience digestive distress after downing a delicious raw smoothie, the blame tends to fall on one of two things:
a) too many ingredients being used or
b) improper food combining,
But there is yet another often overlooked habit that could be causing compromised digestion of your sweet n’ scrumptious smoothies…
Chewing vs. Drinking
Even though it’s easy to drink down a sweet smoothie in just a few gulps, you really shouldn’t. If you want to get the most out of your fruity drink, you need to chew it.
That’s because digestion begins in the mouth, not the stomach. When you chew your food, you secrete saliva. This saliva helps to lubricate the food and your esophagus, but it also contains enzymes that initiate the chemical digestion of the food.
In addition, chewing also helps let the rest of your digestive organs know that food is on the way, i.e. the stomach starts producing hydrochloric acid and the pancreas starts secreting digestive enzymes.
But if you swallow without chewing—even if it’s something drinkable like a smoothie that doesn’t need to be broken down mechanically—you miss an important part of the digestive process.
Chemical digestion in the mouth will likely be hampered because the food won’t spend enough time with your saliva and your stomach and intestines may not receive the signal that food is on the way.
Plus, if you don’t chew, you’ll be more likely to eat too much too quickly, which is an easy and quick way to impair digestion.
Take Home Message
Chew your food, even if you don’t need to. It just means you get to enjoy your food longer. Who doesn’t want that? 
The easiest way to get into the chewing habit is to avoid all other activities when you are having your smoothie (a good rule for all meals, actually). It will be much easier to slow down and make sure you’re chewing if you aren’t distracted by TV or viral videos on YouTube.
Your Thoughts?
Do you chew your smoothies or do you swig ‘em down like many of us (not me, of course) tend to do? Leave your comments below!
Go raw and be fit,
Swayze
P.S. Truth be told, I used to drink all my smoothies. Correction, I used to GULP my smoothies! But since I began chewing them a couple years back, it’s become a healthy habit that I don’t even have to think twice about.
P.P.S. Not guilty of gulping your raw smoothies, salads, and soups because you aren’t eating any in the first place? Not a problem, because I’ve got just the thing…
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6 comments
Thanks. I learned to chew my smoothies and fruit juices a few years ago. Someone remarked that if I put two apples and a pear into a smoothie, it’d take quite some time to EAT those pieces of fruit. So it’d be quite hard work form my stomach to have to deal with all of that at once. This made sense to me.
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I chew my smoothies and raw soups. I learned this a few years ago from green for life book and the blending book which went into great detail about how digestion works and how important it is to chew your food , even smoothies and soups. Also how blending foods helps with digestion by breaking down the food, because people really don’t chew their food enough. Swayze great advice ,chew your smoothies and raw soups.
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Hi Swayze
Good reminder. Yes, I am guilty of GULPING down my smoothies in a hurry.
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I like my smoothies rather on the thick side so I eat my smoothie with a spoon.
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Humm… you must be talking to me! As I was beginning to read this article I was gulping down my smoothie and soon wondered where it went! Too late to chew that one, but chewing is something to remember and I hope to develop a habit of it.
Thanks for the reminder!
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Very true. I learned in elementary school that you should not swallow carbs, and that digestion starts in the mouth. Thanks for the reminder
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Leave a comment, beautiful.