It's Day #4 of my whole-grain fast. I'm feeling pretty good. Two things I've noticed:
1) Wow—I was eating a lot of food before this fast! During the first day and part of the second day, I was hungry for more after my meal. But maybe it really wasn't hunger, but more like habit. What I had gotten into the habit of doing (without even realizing it had become a habit) was eating a snack or "dessert" after my main entree—both at lunch and at dinner. It was usually a handful of barley-malt sweetened chocolate chips or Zen Party Mix (salted nuts & white-rice crackers) or salty oily sunflower seeds or a sesame snack bar of some kind. Also, I'd gotten into the habit of cooking most of my vegetables with sesame oil rather than boiling them in water or steaming them, which was probably fine during the hot summer months, but not so fine during the fall and winter.
2) The second thing that I noticed was that I have not been chewing my food enough times even though I had assumed that I was. And the reason why I wasn't chewing enough was because I wasn't paying complete attention to my eating. And the reason for that was I had gotten into the habit of either reading a book or watching a show on my computer while I was eating my meal. During these past four days I've intentionally counted my bites during my meals, still reading or watching my computer, and was surprised that I was swallowing before I barely reached fifty chews. And when you know that bowl of rice is supposed to last until the next meal, believe me, you want to chew as much as you can!
Chewing your food, especially whole grains, allows you to get the maximum energy out of your food. Carbohydrates are digested in your mouth, unlike fats and proteins, which are digested in the stomach and intestines. So what you don't chew just goes down the drain, so to speak.
Another thing about the importance of chewing grains is that chewing gives the enzymes in your saliva more time to alkalyze the otherwise acid-forming grains. When you're on a whole-grain fast, you're missing most of the foods, like vegetables, that provide an alkalyzing balance with the grains. Herman Aihara's book, Acid & Alkaline, plus Carl Ferre's book, Acid Alkaline Companion, are two great books that explain the effects of acid- and alkaline-forming foods in our bodies. Highly recommended. They are both available on the George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation website.
Related Articles:
What Is True Fasting?
The Yin and Yang of Acid and Alkaline
