How Long Does Food Take To Digest?

Reader Question: Hi. How long does it take for different foods to pass through the stomach?

Andrew's Answer: Different foods have remarkably varied digestive times, and how you combine them can make a large difference.

As a general rule, meat, dairy, and eggs, which have no fiber, digest the slowest. This is followed by fatty foods, starches and processed foods. Next comes vegetables, and finally the extremely quick-digesting fruit.

Fruit spends very little time in the stomach, and quickly moves onto the intestines.

A good primer on digestion and food combining can be found in this article.