Reviewing 11 Bad Eating Habits
Introduction: Eating alone can easily lead to negative emotions and a monotonous diet, which can cause nutritional imbalances. Eating with colleagues and family can lift your mood and stimulate gastric juice secretion, allowing food to be digested and absorbed more quickly.
Eating is not a simple matter, and improper eating habits can affect your health. Today, we're listing 11 common bad eating habits that you must correct.
1. Don't eat alone
Eating alone can easily lead to negative emotions and a monotonous diet, which can cause nutritional imbalances. Eating with colleagues and family can lift your mood and stimulate gastric juice secretion, allowing food to be digested and absorbed more quickly. Additionally, when dining with others, there is a greater variety of food, and sampling a little of each can easily achieve a nutritional balance.
2. Sit up straight while eating
When people eat, their bodies are relaxed, making it easy to slouch. However, this can compress the esophagus and stomach, affecting digestion. Furthermore, eating at a low table, sitting on a sofa, or squatting to eat can put pressure on the abdomen, affecting blood circulation in the digestive tract. Over time, this can lead to stomach problems and affect cardiopulmonary function. The correct posture for eating is to sit up straight, keeping the stomach free from any pressure.
3. Eat your favorite foods first
There are always dishes you prefer and others you don't. So, which should you eat first? Experts suggest eating your favorite foods first to satisfy your emotionally. A pleasant mood can lead to a feeling of fullness more quickly, preventing you from overeating.
4. Drink some congee when you're very hungry
When you're extremely hungry, your appetite is particularly strong, and you want to eat everything. In fact, your digestive function is already impaired at this moment, and overeating can easily cause indigestion. When very hungry, you should have a small amount of semi-liquid food first, and then gradually return to a normal diet. Pay special attention not to drink milk, soy milk, yogurt, or eat sweet potatoes when you are very hungry, as this may cause digestive problems.
5. Don't use your brain right after a meal
After a meal, blood flows to the digestive organs, causing the brain to be relatively deprived of blood. Using your brain at this time can lead to mental tension, decreased memory, and may increase the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Therefore, it's important to rest for at least half an hour after a meal before starting work. Listening to music or taking a walk after a meal are good options.
6. Don't talk about depressing topics during meals
Talking while eating reduces the number of times you chew food and decreases saliva secretion, which affects digestion. A new study from the United States points out that discussing complex or depressing topics during a meal can affect a person's appetite and digestion. It's better to talk about simple, pleasant topics.
7. Keep a 4 to 6-hour interval between meals
Intervals that are too long or too short between meals can affect the body. Too long an interval can cause intense hunger, affecting work efficiency; too short an interval doesn't give the digestive organs enough rest, affecting appetite and digestion. Generally, mixed food stays in the stomach for about 4 to 5 hours, so an interval of 4 to 6 hours between meals is more appropriate.
8. Eat a hot breakfast
In the early morning, the body's nerves and blood vessels are still in a constricted state. Eating cold food at this time can cause the digestive system to cramp. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that breakfast should be hot to protect the stomach's energy. It's recommended to choose hot congee, hot oatmeal, hot soy milk, etc., for breakfast, paired with staple foods like steamed buns or bread.
9. Eat less dessert after a meal
Your main meal already provides enough sugar. Eating dessert afterward will cause your body to absorb excess glucose and starch. This is especially true after eating greasy foods.
10. Eat more dark-colored vegetables
Dark-colored vegetables refer to deep green, red, and purple-red vegetables. The Chinese Nutrition Society recommends eating half a jin (250g) of vegetables daily, with dark-colored vegetables accounting for more than half. Their vitamin C content is twice that of light-colored vegetables. For example, dark purple eggplant has significantly higher nutritional value than light green eggplant, purple onions than white onions, purple cabbage than green cabbage, and purple sweet potatoes than red or white sweet potatoes.
11. Mix animal and vegetable oils
Consuming only vegetable oil can increase the body's peroxides, accelerate aging, affect the absorption of vitamins, and increase the incidence of breast and colon cancer. Animal oil, on the other hand, contains beneficial polyunsaturated fatty acids and lipoproteins for the cardiovascular system. Experts recommend using a mixed oil of one part animal oil to two parts vegetable oil to combine their benefits.