{"id":120,"date":"2026-08-18T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biorgmax.com\/cuanto-tarda-en-digerirse-cada-alimento-la-tabla-completa\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T20:05:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:05:48","slug":"cuanto-tarda-en-digerirse-cada-alimento-la-tabla-completa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biorgmax.com\/en\/cuanto-tarda-en-digerirse-cada-alimento-la-tabla-completa\/","title":{"rendered":"How long it takes to digest each food: the complete table"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00abIn less than 24 hours\u00bb is the figure usually quoted, and it is true for most of what goes into a kitchen. However, the average masks significant variations: digestion time depends on the composition of the waste, and it is advisable to be aware of these differences before selecting the appropriate equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The table<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Type of waste<\/th>Digestion time<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Fruits with a high water content (watermelon, melon)<\/td>2\u20134 hours<\/td><\/tr>
Leafy vegetables (lettuce, cabbage)<\/td>2\u20136 hours<\/td><\/tr>
Fruit (apple, banana, orange)<\/td>4\u20138 hours<\/td><\/tr>
Cereals and pulses (rice, lentils, chickpeas)<\/td>4\u20138 hours<\/td><\/tr>
Bread and noodles<\/td>6 am \u2013 12 noon<\/td><\/tr>
Cakes and starchy foods<\/td>6 am \u2013 4 pm<\/td><\/tr>
Poultry meat (bones less than 8 cm long)<\/td>10 am \u2013 8 pm<\/td><\/tr>
Fish and seafood<\/td>2.00 pm \u2013 10.00 pm<\/td><\/tr>
Pork and beef (bones less than 8 cm long)<\/td>18\u201324 hours<\/td><\/tr>
Seafood (prawns, mussels)<\/td>6 pm \u2013 10 pm<\/td><\/tr>
Chunky vegetables (carrots, potatoes, celery stalks)<\/td>20:00 \u2013 28:00<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What can be gleaned from these figures?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Water speeds things up, fibre slows them down<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The pattern is quite clear. The more water a food contains, the quicker it disappears: watermelon and melon take around two hours. At the other end of the scale are thick, fibrous vegetables \u2014 carrots, potatoes, celery stalks \u2014 which can take up to 28 hours. A carrot takes up to fourteen times longer than a watermelon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Animal protein is in the upper half, not at the top<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It is counterintuitive, but pork and beef (18\u201324 hours) are digested more quickly than some coarse vegetables. What sets the limit for animal protein is not the meat but the bone: the benchmark is bones shorter than 8 cm. Shellfish shells, on the other hand, are amongst the slowest on the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starch falls short<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Bread, pasta and cakes take between 6 and 16 hours to produce. For a bakery or pastry shop, which mainly produce these items, this means manageable production cycles throughout the working day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why this matters when sizing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Two facilities that generate the same number of kilos per day may require different equipment depending on what<\/em> whichever the weight in kilos may be. A seafood restaurant and a greengrocer\u2019s with the same amount of waste do not behave in the same way inside the digester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two things help to ensure that this isn\u2019t a problem in practice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n