I would like to know how long the digestion time of food is in our body.
Please also compare the different types of food, meat, fish, vegetables, potatoes, etc.
Someone claimed, for example, that meat remains in your body for up to 3 to 4 weeks before it is digested, but that seems very unlikely to me, the statement comes from a vegetarian who is against the consumption of meat and wants to convince people with these kinds of arguments that eating meat is very unhealthy is.
Asker: Serge, 45 years old
Answer
Best,
It is not so easy to measure the digestion time of different foods in humans. What is done is to measure the transit time through the entire intestinal tract. This includes the time of the actual digestion and absorption by the small intestine plus the time that the faeces remain in the large intestine (where water and vitamins are still extracted). Transit time varies greatly between different people, is influenced by age, gender and many other factors, making it difficult to determine an average.
An interesting study (Gut 1986, 27:164-169) compared the transit time between subjects with a mixed diet (including meat), a vegetarian diet and a vegan diet. They found no significant difference between the three groups.
There is, however, a clear relationship between the amount of fiber in the diet and the transit time: the more fiber, the shorter the transit time. With a very low-fiber diet, the transit time could be up to 124 hours; on a high fiber diet it was less than 75 hours.
Our digestive system works very efficiently and has no problem at all with meat in the diet. Eating meat is certainly not unhealthy, but a one-sided diet is.
Answered by
prof. Dr. Luke Bouwens
Biomedical Sciences
Free University of Brussels
Pleinlaan 2 1050 Ixelles
http://www.vub.ac.be/
Pleinlaan 2 1050 Ixelles
http://www.vub.ac.be/
.