This article discusses, how desert at the end of a meal significantly impairs the proper digestion process. No need to add food upon the food we already had in our meal. We can enjoy desert separately, in between meals.
We are all eager to finish our meal to enjoy a desert – fruits, tea and cake, creams and ice creams, etc. Even those who try to “mitigate the sin” by using all kinds of artificial sugar substitutes, such as sweet’n low, are causing further damage to themselves and gain weight. (See our special article on this subject “Artificial sweeteners cause obesity, diabetes and gut inflammation”).
Yet, very little has been said, if anything, about deserts and their influence on our digestion. We have never considered the desert to be something problematic. On the contrary, we got used to a desert coming at the end of a meal and it has become a routine.
However, desert has a very significant influence on the quality of the digestion and absorption of the entire meal. In this way, deserts have a crucial impact on the body’s ability to utilize the nutrients it stands to derive from the main meal to produce blood and build tissues.
One of the most prevalent health issues in the modern age is a general weakness of body and mind. This weakness is a direct result and the most common symptom of a deficient blood both in quantity and quality (See our special series of articles on the subject of anemia and the causes for it).
Unfortunately, the conventional medical regard of such weaking of the blood (termed “anemia”) is lacking. For this reason, most people do not make the connection between blood depletion and common chronic or frequent health issues – e.g., headaches, constant fatigue, indigestion, period disorders, various kinds of skeletal pain, depression and anxiety, sleep problems and even neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s, MS and Alzheimer.
he main designation of the dismantled and absorbed food is the production of blood. Whenever the digestive system cannot derive from the food the maximum possible micro-nutrients (i.e., carbs, proteins, lipids, vitamins and minerals), the body’s ability to produce enough quality blood is seriously hampered. In this way, all sorts of deficiencies are created, leading to various metabolic failures manifesting at some point as pathological symptoms, such as the examples mentioned above.
What causes harm to the digestive system’s functions of dismantling and absorption? There could be many reasons for that, but the most common one is a pathological vicious circle, in which an initial damage to the absorption ability has initiated protein deficiency, which in turn depletes the production of digestive enzymes, and the vicious circle is thus repeated.
The chronic protein deficiency also harms the ability to absorb all the other nutrients. Other common causes for a decline in digestion and absorption are chronic stress and anxiety, depletion in the production and secretion of the bile juices, inflammation in the gut, diabetes and more.
Coming back to the desert – how does it harm the ability to digest and absorb the food nutrients? Whenever we eat any meal, be it vegetables, rice, meat, fish, eggs, pasta, etc., the food passes from the mouth down the esophagus and into the stomach. The stomach churns the food like a food processor. The stomach has a few chambers and the churned food gets gradually released down into the intestines.
In the next stage, the churned food undergoes further massive dismantling in the small intestine, involving secretion of digestive enzymes and insulin from the pancreas and bile juices from the gallbladder. At this stage of digestion, when the churned food starts to be released from the stomach into the small intestine – this is the usual time when we eat our desert.
It means that the digestive process of the main meal has not yet been completed and its most important phase has not even begun; and here we are, letting inside the system a new “player”, which is not only very poor in important nutrients, but it is mainly sugary. This disrupts the digestive process of the entire meal that started in the system is at its midst.
The desert disrupts the digestive process in two main ways:
Firstly, the desert shifts the process to a very different path. The entire good food we have eaten prior to the desert has already been churned and is about to enter a more selective and precise process of dismantling and absorption in the gut – i.e., all the proteins, lipids, fibers, etc., are about to be broken down to their basic molecules to enable their absorption. And there arrives the sugary desert and spoils it all.
How?
As it often happens in various ways of existence, the organism is always inclined to reach for the “easy way out”. Glucose (sugar) is the basic molecule in the body needed to revive the cells. Therefore, the more we consume direct, simple and easy to break down sugar, the quicker the system would pounce on it, abandoning the prior digestive process of the main meal, packed with all those good nutrients.
The result is that although the food continues to pass down and enter the small intestine, the crucial process of breaking the food down to its basic molecules gets seriously hampered, and the body’s ability to make use of its nutrients has been greatly diminished. Moreover, food particles that are not properly broken down – especially proteins which must be broken down to amino acids – become toxic to the body and a basis for a wide range of inflammations and over-acidity.
The halfway broken-down protein molecules create an overload on the activity of the liver and the kidneys, as well. Lots of energy resources get wasted in order to secrete as many possible half-digested proteins through the urine and stools, causing more problems on the way out.
The second main damage caused by eating a desert right after a meal is an overload of sugar, which the system struggles to deal with. The accessible sugar occurring in high amounts in a desert breaks down very rapidly compared to the food of the main meal itself. Thus, a large amount of easily available sugar flows quickly and all at once into the cells, increasing the familiar notion of tiredness and sleepiness after desert.
Why do we feel this tiredness and sleepiness? It is so, due to the overload and burden we have created on the system with our desert. We actually “conned” our body: first, we fed it with good and quality food to be digested and absorbed, and then we changed course and uploaded quickly available sugar almost directly to the cells, leaving the quality meal food half processed and not properly usable.
Overtime, this habit causes cell intolerance to glucose – i.e., type 2 diabetes, in which glucose is inhibited from entering the cells. Due to the over-stimulating sugars in the desert, the cell receptors on the cell membrane become insensitive to sugar and the excess blood sugar levels rise, hence diabetes. There are, of course, many more causes for diabetes, but one of the direct causes for it are our deserts.
Deserts cause further indigestion problems all along the IG tract, including in the evacuation path. For example, the gentle balance of the gut flora, so vital to proper digestion process and overall health, gets also disrupted.
The custom of having a desert at the end of the meal has always been very prevalent mainly in the West, but unfortunately, in modern times, this custom has reached the East too. It is a habit difficult to abandon. Generations upon generations have become used to end the meal with some sort of a sugary food and/or drink, and in the West, there has never been anyone to warn against this flawed habit.
Simply abandoning this habit, highly decreases the risk of diabetes, high Bp and hyperlipidemia (excess cholesterol), especially in those who are prone to these diseases. It can totally prevent or at least greatly delay and mitigate their onset for a long time.
At the end of the main meal of the day, it is advisable to drink a moderate-size cup of tea (unsweetened with neither sugar nor sugar substitutes), such as chamomile infusion, which calms the digestive system or quality green tea helpful to the liver. If we have eaten in that meal any non-veg proteins (e.g., meat, fish, eggs and cheese), we can complement the meal, once a day, with a small glass of red wine, as it aids the digestion of non-veg proteins. In any case, we do not need to end the meal with a desert.
The digestion is an intricate process, involving the mediation of innumerable enzymes and gut microbes aiding the completion of it. This process requires a lot of energy and resources from the body. Often, when the digestion is weak, we might feel tiredness after eating. This tiredness might promote us to reach for some available and “quick fix” sugar to supposedly “wake up”.
Instead, we can get up after the meal and engage in some easy and very moderate physical activity. After that we can rest for about 30 minutes but without sleep, as sleep slows down the digestion process. Eating moderately also helps to avoid after-meal fatigue.
From time to time, we can enjoy a desert, about 30-60 minutes after the completion of the meal (depending on the sort of desert), but never right after the main food. Preferable, this “desert” would be prepared from natural ingredients and quality oil, without preservatives of any kind.
Obviously, fruits and nuts are the healthier choice. In any case, it is advisable to stay away from bakes and other deserts prepared with margarine, trans fats, preservatives, milk and sugar substitutes, “addible” colours, etc. Even and especially diabetic people should totally avoid any artificial sweeteners, as they themselves are a cause for diabetes – (See our special article on this subject “Artificial sweeteners cause obesity, diabetes and gut inflammation”).
But it should be stressed that even fruits, nuts and other quality deserts should be always consumed separately and away from the main meal. After food, we do not need more food. We have eaten and become satiated, and that is enough.
Anyone suffering from any kind of illness would feel an improvement in their digestion after 3-4 weeks of abstaining from a desert right after a meal. A diabetic person would immediately feel an improvement by abstaining from after-meal desert and this improvement would be also evident in their after-meal blood sugar levels.
As noted, “desert withdrawal” is not easy. Deserts fulfill not only a false physical sensation, but they often also fulfill an emotional need. However, once we have become aware of the damage those deserts actually cause, we acquire the motivation to start a positive change and create better and healthier alternative habits.
Wishing everyone good health,
Oren Kaholi, Dr. of Natural Health Science (PhD. DNHSc)
Oren Kaholi, Dr. of Natural Health Science (PhD. DNHSc) specializes in the unique acupuncture system of Single Needle Technique (SNT) and Chinese medicinal herbs pharmacology. Based on his professional training and vast clinical experience, Dr. Kaholi developed a precise holistic method of diagnosis, combining many diagnostic tools. Dr. Kaholi’s diagnostic method enables him to offer efficient personalized natural treatment plans for each of his patients with an average rate of success exceeding 95%. Dr. Kaholi has been treating a vast range of illnesses, acute and chronic, for over a decade both in Israel (his home base) and all over the world. Dr. Kaholi lectures on maintaining a healthy lifestyle and teaches his system.
