My son was home for the holidays and he told me some intersting stuff that I had no idea was occuring so I thought I'd pass this on. First off, son #1 has a masters in massage therapy and is working on his degree in osteopathy, so he tends to know his anatomy.
He told me that chewing your food SLOWLY and COMPLETELY is of tantamount importance. He said you should actually chew each mouthfull until it becomes a paste before swallowing. Why? Well, 1st off, the enzymes in the saliva have a predigestive. If you don't allow this enough time to break down the food, the complimentary enzymes in the stomach won't work correctly on the food and you'll simply pass this food on out of your body without absorbing the nutrients and good stuff. But more importantly (at least to me as a diabetic), there is a chemical signal that is sent to the pancreas and the stomach the longer the food stays in your mouth. This signal says, "X" quanity of food is on its way to the stomach and this signal cues the endocrine system to start producing insulin AND to start secreteing the proper amount of stomach enzymes to digest what is in the mouth. IF you don't chew the food long enough, this singnal tells the body there is only a tiny amount on the way and, well you can see the scenario.
Now that amount of chewing is a pain. What my son told me is that if you really want to be conscientious about this, put your fork down between mouthfuls, because if you don't, you have food on its way to your mouth before you are done chewing and what do you do?? you swallow to accomodate the new forkfull.
Now, do I do this. NO!! Have I tried this? Not really, I just learned about it. It seems like a major pain in the butt, but some modification of this seems like its worth a try. In any event, I'll give it a try and see if it has an effect on my BS numbers or not. Anyone else brave enough to try this, post your experiences here.
Warren