Easily Digestible Foods

The newer generations are becoming more and more health conscious and have started consuming simpler diets in small quantities. Not only this, but people are also demanding easily digestible food to reduce down the strain on their digestive system. The following is an explanation to the easily digestible diet that you can follow. A small list of easily digestible foods has also been included.

There are several reasons why we may need to consume easily digestible foods and vegetables for a period of time;

• Illness or recovery from an illness
• Weight reduction
• To get rid of problems due to excessive consumption of cholesterol
• Recovery from a surgery

"What are easily digestible foods?", is the first question that comes to our minds when we hear the words, 'most easily digestible foods'. The basic logic that can be applied while getting to know about the easily digestible foods is, simpler the nutrients within the food products, the easier is the digestion process. The term 'simple nutrients' can be explained as follows.

The most prominent and healthy food stuffs that human beings tend to consume primarily contain four basic types of food groups or nutrients namely, natural sugars, carbohydrates, proteins and fats. The human body needs all the 4 types of food nutrients in some or the other form, for the normal functioning of the body. The human digestive system requires the least time and energy to break down natural sugars and assimilate it in the body. The carbohydrates require a little more time and energy to be digested. The proteins can be classified into simple and compound. As the name suggests, the simple proteins require less time to be digested as compared to the compound proteins, and the fats require the maximum time to be broken down. The easily digestible foods thus contain more of natural sugars, simple proteins and carbohydrates. However, we cannot exclude the other nutrients like fats and compound proteins, vitamins and minerals, as they are required to fulfill the bodily functions that tend to go on in our body. Hence the easily digestible diet must not only contain easily digested protein, sugars or the easily digestible carbs, but must also contain some amount of fats, compound proteins and other complex nutrients of foods as well in small quantities. You may also read more on healthy recipes and healthy diet.

Before we begin with the list of easily digestible foods, we must bear in mind that there are many factors that affect the rate of digestion. Just eating the most easily digestible protein or living off on a diet of easily digestible snacks will not ensure a quick and easy digestion. You may also read more on

• Healthy Snacks
• Healthy Drinks

List of Easily Digestible Foods

Vegetables
Vegetables and for that matter, all the fruits contain a significant amount of easily digestible carbohydrates. Vegetables also contain two very important nutrients namely water and fiber that are instrumental in easing digestion and also increasing the rate of digestion. Eating the vegetables raw or in the boiled form are easy to digest. Furthermore, cooking the vegetables or storing them in the refrigerator oxidizes the enzymes and vitamins that are present in the food. Taking out the juice of the vegetables helps in quick digestion.

Pulses
Most of the pulses cannot be consumed in the raw state. To make the pulses easily digestible, you can either germinate them or boil them. Personally, I would recommend germination as it provides a good amount of simple proteins. I would also recommend you not to cook pulses with any fat or oil as it complicates the entire food, thus straining the digestive system. A dash of some herbs and fruit juice or lemon juice often tends to work wonders.

Cereals
Just like the pulses, one must certainly avoid cooking cereals with fat or oil. The simple proteins often get converted into compound proteins if cooked. Baking the flour of a cereal is quite okay, but again one must avoid any kind of fat. To know more about raw food consumption, read raw foods.

Easily Digestible Foods

Vegetables	Pulses	Cereals
potatoes	soya sprouts	corn fresh
lucerne sprouts	red lentils	wheat sprouts
asparagus	green beans	oats
peeled zucchini	pod-peas	rice
apple	peas	quinoa
garlic	green soybeans	barley

Some of the other vegetables that are easily digestible include chinese cabbage, pumpkin, chervil, green celery, pastinaak, peeled cucumber, purslane, red beet, tomato, white leek, turnip, spinach, small salad, fennel, sweet potato and carrots.

Foods Which are Not Easily Digestible

Vegetables	Pulses	Cereals
eggplant	soya parts	wheat
endive	peas deep frozen	buckwheat
onion	tofu	couscous
Swedish turnip	yellow soybeans	bulgur
cabbage	chickpea	rye
green leek	black eye beans	seitan

Some of the vegetables that are not easily digestible include cauliflower, mushroom, broccoli, daikon, celery root, black radish, peels of zucchini, paprika, salsify, Brussels sprouts, salad, beets, quorn and chicory.

To know more about the digestive system refer to:

• Digestive Health
• Digestive System

These tables would help you to make a variety of easily digestible meals and snacks. Hence, if you want to have food that is easily digestible, all you need to do is refer to the given tables and make the combination that you like. Another very important piece of information - all raw vegetables and fruits are the most easily digestible foods.