Do you know what happens after you take a bite of food? Sure, it goes to your stomach, but what’s next? How does food get into your bloodstream, and how long does it take?

It takes several hours for food to get into your bloodstream. First, digestion must happen. That means your food has to get broken down into the nutrients it’s made of. Next, the absorption process occurs. Any step of the way, something can impede the entire process, lengthening the amount of time it takes for food to get into your bloodstream. By making healthy choices and drinking nutritious shakes, you can speed up the process and absorb foods into your bloodstream faster.

ENU wants you to benefit from the nutrients you eat quickly. That’s why our nutritious shakes are formulated with whey protein are fortified with four additional grams of medium-chain triglycerides for enhanced absorption. If you need help getting food into your bloodstream, visit our website and buy fast-absorbing ENU Nutritional Shakes today.

How Does Food Get into Your Bloodstream?

To understand how long it takes for food to get into your bloodstream, you should grasp how it gets into your bloodstream in the first place. Once you do, you can then understand why the rate at which food gets into your bloodstream can change.

After you eat food, it travels to your stomach, and the breakdown process begins. Food doesn’t really enter your bloodstream, but the nutrients inside food do. Those are the things that make up your favorite snacks, like protein, carbs, and fats. The enzymes in your stomach reduce food to its smallest molecules (metabolites), which are then absorbed through the walls in the small intestine.

While the process can seem quite complex, it’s relatively simple once you break it down. Before getting absorbed into the bloodstream, foods must be digested and reduced to their different parts.

How Long Does It Take for Food to Get into Your Bloodstream?

The process of food getting into your bloodstream is known as absorption. Absorption can’t happen without digestion, so food needs to be broken down to eventually get into your bloodstream. Depending on the food, the entire process can take hours to fully complete.

After eating food, it may take up to eight hours before it is absorbed into your bloodstream. Of course, some foods are more easily digested than others. In general, the process takes six to eight hours but can change depending on the food you eat.

Certain foods, like ENU Nutritional Shakes, are formulated to be easily digestible. That means by eating specific foods or drinking healthy shakes, you can get food into your bloodstream more quickly.

Remember, the foods you eat have to go through a lengthy process before they can get into your bloodstream. Once that process is complete, the resulting nutrients can travel to the necessary areas of your body. How long it takes for you to digest food and absorb it into your bloodstream will depend on your health history and any medical complications you may have.

Why Can It Take Longer for Food to Get into Your Bloodstream?

It can take longer for food to get into your bloodstream for various reasons. Learning those reasons can help you understand why it may take you longer to benefit from the nutrients you consume.

Here are some reasons why it can take longer for food to get into your bloodstream:

• Absorption issues
• Food allergies
• Gastrointestinal issues

If you have absorption issues, like cystic fibrosis (CF) patients do, it may take longer for food to get into your bloodstream. That’s because CF patients have thick mucus in their pancreas, which inhibits the necessary enzymes from reaching the small intestine. This can extend absorption times and reduce the amount of nutrients that ultimately get into your bloodstream.

If you have CF or other absorption issues, certain healthy shakes can help. For example, ENU Nutritional Shakes are made with whey protein while remaining lactose-free and highly digestible. Ten grams of whey protein only takes one hour to digest, which is much faster than other foods.

People with food allergies may also have difficulty absorbing food into the bloodstream at the right rate. Suppose you’re lactose intolerant. Your stomach doesn’t have the enzymes necessary to break down milk sugars. So, if you eat certain milk products with lactose, those foods may never get absorbed into your bloodstream properly.

Because food has to get broken down before it can get into your bloodstream, you need a healthy gastrointestinal tract. If you have gastrointestinal issues, you may have difficulty breaking down foods into nutrients. This can greatly extend the absorption time and prevent you from getting food into your bloodstream as you need it.

How Can You Make Food Get into Your Bloodstream Faster?

Why is it important that food gets into your bloodstream at the right pace? Well, the nutrients in food (protein, carbs, fats) are necessary to support your bodily functions. If they’re not absorbed fast, then you can’t benefit from them as soon as you’d like. So, how can you make food get into your bloodstream faster?

A great way to speed up absorption is by eating foods that are, well, fast-absorbing. For example, bananas, which are nutritious and high in protein, only take 30 minutes to digest. For a whole egg, the process takes about 45 minutes. That means those foods can get absorbed into your bloodstream faster. However, that doesn’t necessarily make absorption easier for people with malabsorption.

You can use a healthy shake to simplify and speed up how long it takes for food to get into your bloodstream. Certain shakes, like ENU Nutritional Shakes, are formulated to promote absorption. While whey protein in these shakes can quicken the absorption of essential proteins and amino acids, fortifying them with added benefits can also help.

Medium-chain triglycerides promote fast absorption, which is ideal for people who need foods to get into the bloodstream faster. Healthy shakes may have added grams of MCTs per serving as ENU Nutritional Shakes do. This speeds up the absorption process, meaning you can benefit from all the nutrients in your shake sooner.

Drink ENU Nutritional Shakes to Increase Food Absorption into Your Bloodstream

To get food into your bloodstream at the right pace, you may need to add a nutritious shake to your diet. People with absorption issues can visit ENU’s website and purchase our fast-absorbing ENU Nutritional Shakes today.