1. We could be eating a meal in a stressed, or sympathetic state. Our modern society constantly has us on the run. We can’t even relax and focus a few minutes a day on using all of our senses to focus on our food. Eating in a stressed situation is a contributor to not digesting food properly. Try this instead…Where did it come from? Who prepared it? Be thankful for it. Breathe deeply. Chew slowly.

2. Speaking of chewing slowly, we aren’t chewing our food well enough or long enough. Our digestion starts in the brain, then moves to our mouth. The mechanical and chemical (saliva) process in our mouth begins to break that food down.

3. Once you swallow that food, it makes its way to your stomach. When you haven’t followed the first 2 steps, your stomach has its work cut out for it now. Also, if you are consuming poor quality, processed foods, including inflammatory hydrogenated and/or rancid oils, the trouble is compounded. Stomach acid begins the further breakdown of your food by a series of chemical processes and muscular contractions. Odds are, if you regularly experience heartburn, you aren’t producing enough stomach acid to break down the food enough before entering the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine.

4. Once the food reaches our small intestine, it *should* have a low enough pH (be highly acidic) to trigger a hormonal response. As long as the pH is low enough, the hormone cholecystokinin signals the pancreas and gall bladder to release bile and enzymes that can break down and emulsify the fat into fatty acids that the intestines can make use of and send out to the body. If undigested fats (and the rest of our stomach contents) have a higher pH as they are pushed into the duodenum, this response may not happen. This impedes our ability to extract nutrients and instead puts our intestinal wall in danger.