Which foods are digested more slowly

As a result, the fiber passes through your large intestine and may cause a number of issues, from gas to bloating to difficult-to-pass stool. Eating foods that are low in fiber lessens the amount of undigested material and may ease your symptoms.

Whole fruits contain high amounts of fiber, but cooking them helps break down the fiber significantly, which makes it easier to digest. Peeling the skin and removing the seeds from fruit and vegetables will help lower the amount of fiber.

When eating any of the above fruits, consume them in small amounts as they are raw and larger portion sizes may still trigger abdominal discomfort. Just like fruit, whole vegetables have a lot of fiber.

You can cook your vegetables at home or find canned varieties on the shelves at your local grocery store. Potatoes without skin and tomato sauces are other options for low-fiber vegetables. Main courses of lean protein like chicken, turkey, and fish tend to digest well. Tender cuts of beef or pork and ground meats are other good options.

Vegetarians might try incorporating eggs, creamy nut butters, or tofu for added protein. How you prepare meat can also affect how easy it is to digest.

Instead of frying it, try grilling, broiling, baking, or poaching. You may have heard that hearty whole grains are healthiest to consume in your diet. Plain pasta or noodles and pretzels made with refined flours also fall in this category.

Refined flours grains have been modified to remove the bran and germ, making them easier to digest. This is in contrast to unrefined flours, which go through less processing and contain higher fiber. Typically , refined flours are not recommended in large quantities as part of a healthy diet. Look for products that are lactose-free or low in lactose. Otherwise, dairy is low in fiber and may be easy to digest for many people.

Try drinking plain milk or snacking on cheese, yogurt, and cottage cheese. High-fat dairy foods like ice cream are not easily digestible. Herbs and spices should be used with caution in cooking. Most vegetables are low GI foods , including artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, eggplant, all types of greens, okra, peppers, squash and zucchini.

Examples of slow carbs among the starchy vegetables are peas, carrots, parsnips and yams are all slow digesting. Fruits tend to be higher in natural sugars than vegetables and so they are digested and absorbed more quickly by the body. Still, a number of fruits are considered slow carbs, including apples, oranges, peaches, pears, plums, nectarines and grapefruit. Beans and legumes make good choices when you're looking for slow digesting carbs.

Those with a GI under 55 include baked beans, black-eyed peas, black beans, chickpeas, kidney beans, navy beans, lentils, soybeans and peanuts. The added advantage of these foods is that they are rich sources of plant protein if you are trying to reduce your intake of animal protein. In general, whole-grains digest more slowly than highly refined grains like white bread.

The slowest-digesting grains include percent stone-ground whole wheat or pumpernickel bread, wheat and corn tortillas, quinoa, brown rice, rolled or steel-cut oatmeal, oat bran, barley and bulgur. You may not think of dairy products as carbs, but these foods supply natural sugar in the form of lactose. First, you have to understand how each macronutrient is processed. As such, carbs have the shortest digestion time—and refined ones, like crackers and cookies, are digested quicker than unprocessed carbs, like the apple, which tend to be rich in fiber—so they can provide quick energy.

Protein, on the other hand, is digested more slowly than carbohydrates. During digestion, fats are broken down into fatty acids and glycerol, which are then absorbed by the intestine; then they must be reassembled with some proteins to be transported into the blood. The problem with understanding how each macronutrient is digested is that we rarely consume macronutrients in isolation—so how long it actually takes to digest a meal can vary widely for example, even a high-fat food like peanut butter also contains protein, and even a few carbs.

On average, it takes hours for a meal to move completely through your digestive tract, says Mary Creel, a registered dietitian with eMeals. Yet that can vary greatly from person to person; digestion is affected by your sleep, stress level, water intake, activity level, gut health, metabolic rate and age, says Creel. A study from the Mayo Clinic even found a huge difference in digestion time among genders: The average transit time through the large intestine was 33 hours for men and 47 hours for women.

A complex carb, oatmeal is a great source of soluble fiber and has a high satiety ranking, as it soaks up water and delays emptying into the stomach. Foods that metabolize slowly often leave you feeling full for upward of two hours after eating them. The system used to rate how long foods take to digest is called the glycemic index.

If a food has a high glycemic index, it requires less time to digest, leaving you hungry soon after eating. Foods with a low glycemic index ward off hunger. One of the healthiest, slowest-metabolizing types of food available is vegetables. Many contain complex carbs, which inherently gives them a lower glycemic index.

As a bonus, vegetables contain very few calories, allowing you to indulge in one or two servings without guilt. For example, each cup of fresh spinach contains about 90 calories. Generally, all veggies in the produce -- or frozen -- section of your grocer are great options to fill up on.