Criteria of a perfect digestion

The conditioning induced by years of denatured food causes us to confuse certain positive signals with nuisance messages (or the reverse), such as the feeling of a full stomach with satisfaction, when it is two quite different things.

The general criterion of a correct digestion is, to use the expression of Claude-Bernard, the silence of the organs. We can however analyze more closely the sensations or absences of sensations linked to this silence, or more exactly this well-being, as follows:

Absence of symptoms or any disturbances:

No discomfort, no fatigue, no postponement, no acidity, no hiccups, no hiccups, no pinching, no gas, etc. In this case, we can say that nature is perfect: to the perfection of digestion corresponds the perfection of proprioception.

Lightness:

No feeling of heaviness, an overly full stomach, painful digestion work, fatigue;

Post-tasting:

A slight reminder of the pleasant taste of the food consumed is maintained in the back of the throat, contributing to the feeling of satisfaction and organic tranquility;

Roundness:

No salient aftertaste predominates over the others, there remains a feeling of harmony between the traces of flavors of the food consumed;

Transparency:

The entire digestive tract (oral cavity, esophagus, stomach …) gives a feeling of transparency, which can be defined by its opposite, ie no feeling of being soiled, clogged, polluted by unwanted products.

These criteria correspond to the digestion phase. But already during ingestion, some negative signs may appear. It is then necessary to take this into account immediately and interrupt food intake. If we wrongly insist, various discomforts (the opposite of the previous criteria) set in during digestive work, resulting in a negative conditioning prompting to interrupt ingestions more quickly during a following meal.

Thus a learning of instinctive stopping is spontaneously set up: sensitivity to these criteria is exercised day by day, listening to the body is gradually being refined and we are increasingly balanced. precise. The whole of these stomach processes doubles in a way the alliesthesic cancellation of the taste itself. A good nutritional balance is only possible by taking into account both olfactory and gustatory signals and stomach signals.

We notice at the beginning a sometimes consequent phase shift between alliesthesia signals and stomach signals, but with time, a convergence sets in, leaving less and less doubt on the advisability of the interruption of the ingestion.

The great obstacle to this learning is psychological and cultural: the impression, often going back to early childhood, that the more we eat, the better we will be (residue of education “a spoon for mom, a spoon for dad” ), the idea that such a food whose properties the diet praises to us will ensure our health (when only the body itself can know what suits it at a given moment), the habit of finishing its plate so as not to let nothing go to waste (neglecting the capital fact that a food which is not felt to be attractive is harmful even if it is useful in other circumstances), etc.

If we let ourselves go to these cultural pressures, we risk settling into a permanent overload, and never discovering either the criteria for perfect digestion or the “luminous phase” of natural flavors.