The human food factory has two jobs to do: First, it must break down the large food molecules into increasingly smaller molecules that can be moved throughout the body, to pass through the cell and tissue walls. A starch molecule in that bite of wheat bread you ate for supper cannot possibly penetrate the intestinal wall into the bloodstream until it is reduced to the proper size molecule by digestion. In this procedure of digestion, starch molecules are broken down into sugars; fats and oils into soaps; proteins into amino acids.
Second, the human food factory must convert alien food molecules into distinct human molecules. The foods we place in our stomachs contains molecules of many kinds: cow's milk, chicken and animal flesh, fish oil, grain starch, vegetable fibers, and many more. We eat beef protein, for instance, but not one particular single tissue cell in the human body can be repaired and taken care of by the protein in beef flesh, until this animal protein is changed into molecules of human protein, that is, into amino acids which, in turn, are reconstructed by the body into human protein, the kind that is usable by our body cells.
Therefore, the food we put into our bodies is simply the raw material from which our digestive tract processes and extracts the nutritive elements that actually feed our tissue, nerve and bone cells. Everybite of food we put into our mouths is destined for the ultimate goal of these cells. It is not the stomach we feed - we feed our cells!
The flour that is rolled by the barrel into the bakeries is not the bread that goes on your table any more than the bite of bread you eat is the substance that feeds the body cells. The flour (whole grain, of course, for white flour is a crime against digestion) must first be mixed with other ingredients and broken down by heat into “digestible” form before it emerges as a loaf of edible bread. In turn, the bite of bread we eat must be combined with certain salivary secretions, digestive acids and enzymes before it, too, can be converted into “digestible” form for assimilation into the bloodstream where it is carried throughout the body to the eagerly awaiting cells.
The organs involved in the digestive processes are numerous - and their ailments are more than several.
When we talk about the “digestive apparatus” we normally mean the stomach, the duodenum, the small intestine, the large intestine or colon, the liver, the gall bladder and the pancreas, although this latter organ is also a member of the endocrine gland system.
There are many reasons for indigestion, as well as its associated maladies: constipation, ulcers and colitis. Symptoms of these disorders and diseases are numerous and varied. This is not surprising when we consider that the whole digestive function is a long, complicated, delicately balanced process; in fact, so delicately well balanced is the digestive process that minor causes often throw it out of gear.
In addition to issues of the digestive organs themselves, there are three basic reasons for indigestion and constipation: eating the wrong kind of food, eating too much and eating too quickly.
At least three-fourths of the American people eat far more food than is truly required to keep the body properly stoked with fuel. Yet they are surprised when gas, sour stomach, belching, nausea and constipation, as well as many other signs of digestive upsets, indicate that the “food factory” is not operating up to its intended efficiency. The common tendency is to blame the trouble on “something I ate.” But, unless that something was too great a food atrocity, it alone did not cause the whole trouble. However, combined with other unwise foods, swallowed in improperly chewed hunks, washed down by gulps of liquid, plus generous gulps of air, it all can add up to indigestion - trouble in the “food factory.”
Second, the human food factory must convert alien food molecules into distinct human molecules. The foods we place in our stomachs contains molecules of many kinds: cow's milk, chicken and animal flesh, fish oil, grain starch, vegetable fibers, and many more. We eat beef protein, for instance, but not one particular single tissue cell in the human body can be repaired and taken care of by the protein in beef flesh, until this animal protein is changed into molecules of human protein, that is, into amino acids which, in turn, are reconstructed by the body into human protein, the kind that is usable by our body cells.
Therefore, the food we put into our bodies is simply the raw material from which our digestive tract processes and extracts the nutritive elements that actually feed our tissue, nerve and bone cells. Everybite of food we put into our mouths is destined for the ultimate goal of these cells. It is not the stomach we feed - we feed our cells!
The flour that is rolled by the barrel into the bakeries is not the bread that goes on your table any more than the bite of bread you eat is the substance that feeds the body cells. The flour (whole grain, of course, for white flour is a crime against digestion) must first be mixed with other ingredients and broken down by heat into “digestible” form before it emerges as a loaf of edible bread. In turn, the bite of bread we eat must be combined with certain salivary secretions, digestive acids and enzymes before it, too, can be converted into “digestible” form for assimilation into the bloodstream where it is carried throughout the body to the eagerly awaiting cells.
The organs involved in the digestive processes are numerous - and their ailments are more than several.
When we talk about the “digestive apparatus” we normally mean the stomach, the duodenum, the small intestine, the large intestine or colon, the liver, the gall bladder and the pancreas, although this latter organ is also a member of the endocrine gland system.
There are many reasons for indigestion, as well as its associated maladies: constipation, ulcers and colitis. Symptoms of these disorders and diseases are numerous and varied. This is not surprising when we consider that the whole digestive function is a long, complicated, delicately balanced process; in fact, so delicately well balanced is the digestive process that minor causes often throw it out of gear.
In addition to issues of the digestive organs themselves, there are three basic reasons for indigestion and constipation: eating the wrong kind of food, eating too much and eating too quickly.
At least three-fourths of the American people eat far more food than is truly required to keep the body properly stoked with fuel. Yet they are surprised when gas, sour stomach, belching, nausea and constipation, as well as many other signs of digestive upsets, indicate that the “food factory” is not operating up to its intended efficiency. The common tendency is to blame the trouble on “something I ate.” But, unless that something was too great a food atrocity, it alone did not cause the whole trouble. However, combined with other unwise foods, swallowed in improperly chewed hunks, washed down by gulps of liquid, plus generous gulps of air, it all can add up to indigestion - trouble in the “food factory.”