What transpires beneath? – Part 2

Previously on wellness and I – We spoke about oxygen as an essential to our body and how to get it other than just breathe?
Today we will know why it’s more important to absorb right than eat right? Yes, its not only important that the right food in the right amount reaches your gut but also the same passes beyond it into the blood stream. Many people eat right food, at the right time but fail in getting their health to reflect it and the reason is they eat two good foods which are wrong for each other in the body at the same time. Confused? Let me explain.

Our body has millions of cells they in turn are made up of bio molecules which react differently to different molecules of the other cells which is how our body processes every action, thought, and reaction to whatever we do. Similar logic applies to different nutrients in the food we eat that react differently with the nutrients of other foods when in the digestive system. It’s called nutrient – nutrient interaction. Every nutrient has a supporter and a detractor when it is in the small intestine trying to get absorbed in the blood. If the supporters out number the detractors the nutrient wins and passes through the intestinal membrane smoothly but if the detractors are equal or more than the supporters the nutrient is flushed out of the body as easily as it entered. I know what your thinking it is almost like the elections.

When you want to get an iron rich meal in a day don’t mix it up with a calcium rich food at the same time. Inside the intestine the calcium takes a better preference to iron. In order to make sure your iron intake has not been wasted add a tangy tasty Vitamin C food item along with the iron rich food item. For instance when you have your leafy greens rich in iron or egg yolk, or any lean meat or rice flakes or iron enriched grain or figs make sure you add in with it a generous helping of vitamin C rich foods like berries, lettuce, lime juice, kiwi, sprouted beans, raw mango and avocado salad with beans. Calcium usually reduces the absorption of zinc, iron and manganese, similarly zinc reduces absorption of copper. Calcium in turn is hampered by oxalates or oxalic acids present in leafy vegetables, a classic example is that of spinach, rhubarb which are rich sources of calcium but also of oxalic acids which when taken in after digestion forms calcium oxalates in the gut and do not get absorbed in the blood as calcium. The leafy source of calcium is raddish greens, fenugreek leaves which aren’t a oxalate risk factor. Coupling oxalic acids sources with that of non oxalic acid sources like dairy is also a good option to combat the effect.

Now one wonders it is hard enough to eat right at the right time so now we need to adjust good food with another good food. Well if you see it the hard way it will be difficult, but understand the taste compatibility and you’ll be fine. It needs to be understood however that for a nutrient to be bioavailable (that means sufficient enough to be absorbed in the intestine) it has to be sufficiently eaten and should not be mixed with its antagonist nutrients. Sometimes to save the body from toxicity of a nutrient (yes nutrients also can be responsible for an overdose like our drugs) the lumen or the line of the intestine has other organic or inorganic molecules like proteins, lipids, minerals which get bonded to these excessive nutrients such as iron or ferrous get bonded to intestinal ferritin, calcium to calbidin, or phosphates in high quantity into calcium phosphates, zinc to metallothiocin in the gut, which then get excreted out of the body. Now let me throw some light on glucose – the god of energy source. Sodium as in the salt and other foods is the transporter for glucose into the blood stream. Don’t get me wrong and think about increasing your sodium intake.
All in all your diet need not only depend on how many calories you intake but on all the above factors and that truly can’t be learnt by an amateur it requires a trained and certified professional with a clinical education of the human body.

Wish you wellness.
Regards,
Neha.