Rumbling tummy? It doesn't mean you need to eat - it's your gut cleaning itself! (trunc)

Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 25 May 2015 | GIULIA ENDERS

[UnwashedPeasant]

What happens to food after we've eaten? The ins and outs of digestion are not normally considered suitable for polite conversation.

But we should know more about what goes on according to a new book by 25-year-old microbiologist Giulia Enders. Gut: The Inside Story Of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ, is already a bestseller in her native Germany.

And it makes eye-opening reading, as this extract reveals...

From the minute we take our first bite of food, enzymes in saliva start breaking it down. Tiny openings on our cheek secrete saliva even at the thought of food. It has a host of other purposes, too, which is why other openings under the tongue secrete saliva continuously - up to a litre a day.

Saliva is basically blood without the red cells. It contains calcium to help harden our teeth, hormones including oestrogen and testosterone, and perhaps most surprisingly, a natural painkiller, opiorphin, that is stronger than morphine.

...

The large intestine has three sections: the ascending, transverse, and descending colon. When we go to the loo, we usually empty the last section. By the next day, it has filled up again.

For most people, the content of their large intestine is enough for one bowel movement a day.

However, people who provide their large intestine with sufficient bulk may have to go to the loo two or three times a day. Faeces is three-quarters water, to ensure it is soft enough to pass easily. Of the solid matter, an astonishing one third is bacteria that our body doesn't need any more.

Another third is made up of indigestible vegetable fibre, and the remaining third is made up of substances your body wants to get rid of - such as the remains of medicines, food colours or cholesterol.

[MomwithHope]

Nothing about probiotics or gut health/correcting inbalances. Kefir Kefir Kefir, we drink some every day, made with A2 milk.

[June2]

Bkmk