But, then, what is balanced diet? Almost a decade ago, the US Department of Agriculture, USDA, published a Food Pyramid that depicted the food materials that constituted a healthy diet.

It was extensively publicized and its main objective was to educate Americans about a balanced diet that can help them control their weight, yet remain active, healthy and free from chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disorders. The revised version in 2005 lays more stress on avoidance of dietary fats, particularly trans-fats, limit sugar intake, add more whole grains to diet and include some physical exercise in daily routine.

Other recommendations that continue to hold good include consumption of up to half of dietary grains in the form of refined starch, taking red meat, poultry, fish and soy beans as protein sources, drinking at least three glasses of low-fat milk or three servings of dairy products to boost calcium levels to prevent osteoporosis and adding green vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes in sufficient quantities to your daily diet.

The process of digestion helps to convert food that we take into simpler forms and help their absorption and assimilation in the body. Eating habits significantly influence the digestive system. If the system is distressed due to lifestyle and eating habit related irregularities, many harmful symptoms like heartburn are produced.

Heartburn is a burning sensation just behind the breast bone in the region of the chest caused by reverse flow of acidic and partially digested food material from the stomach into the food pipe (esophagus) connecting the stomach to the mouth. It causes considerable suffering and if left uncontrolled, it can get complicated with formation of ulcers.

The body’s requirement of energy and growth inputs depends on age, sex, activity and state of health. The digestive system’s capacity to handle food type and quantity is also more or less tuned to these parameters. So, if excess food is taken on regular basis, the digestive system is overstressed and its enzyme stock is quickly withered leading to frequent bouts of digestive distress, indigestion and other health complications.

Overeating, particularly fatty food, not only produces digestive distress and heartburn symptoms, but also enhances the risk of getting overweight and developing serious disorders like hypertension, cardiovascular problems and diabetes.

Enzymes secreted by various glands in the body significantly aid the digestion process. Our salivary glands in the mouth produce saliva that is rich in amylase. This enzyme helps breakdown of carbohydrates into simple sugars during the process of chewing.

So, good chewing of food facilitates digestion. Fast eating gets deprived of this benefit and becomes a strain on digestion. Again, fresh foods have “live” enzymes compared to cooked foods where the enzymes are “dead”. When we take fresh food, there is less stress on the digestive system, as the enzymes in the fresh foods themselves initiate breakdown of the food into simpler and absorbable forms.

Taking hard to digest food regularly or drinking too much of fluids before and during meals impair digestive efficiency by overstressing enzyme secretion functions and these eventually lead to lots of complications including aggravation of heartburn symptoms.