“It is not what you eat but what you digest that gives you health”
said Dr Arun Sharmaji in his recent workshop that I attended at National Institute of Naturopathy, Pune.
In the era of super foods and new diets getting prescribed daily, this may look very simple but yet is a very profound principle to regain and maintain health.
What is the time taken to digest by various foods that we eat?
Fruits get digested the quickest in an hour or so
And then come green leafy vegetables in the raw form
and then non-starchy salad vegetables, then starchy vegetables which we steam and consume with some spices.
Then soaked dried fruits and soaked dried nuts and sprouts.
Post that conservatively cooked meals like dal-rice-roti-sabji can take anywhere from 2.5 to 4 hrs.
After these come dairy and animal products which can take anywhere from 7 to 72 hrs to digest.
And then there are highly processed foods and then non-foods like artificial flavours, colors and preservatives, caffeine which may not leave our bodies for months.
To top it all, some non-foods we consume indirectly like pollutants in the air, water, food, personal care products, home care products which may never leave us.
For healing and nourishing purposes, foods that can be digested within 4 hrs work the best!
Now you know which foods amongst these can give us health 🙂