You are here: the-vu> Health> Food Combining

Food Combining
Some say it’s the worst thing you can do, and others say there’s nothing wrong with it. the-vu looks at articles and books representing both sides of the controversy, so you can decide for yourself.
By Jeffrey the Barak
Published September 2000

Against.
Why you shouldn’t combine certain types of food.

Certain foods, if mixed in the digestive system, will cause problems with the body’s digestive chemistry. Different foods are digested in different ways by your body. Starchy foods require an alkaline digestive medium which is supplied initially in the mouth by the enzyme ptyalin. Protein foods require an acid medium for digestion, hydrochloric acid.

Acids and alkalis neutralize each other, so If you eat a starch with a protein, digestion is impaired or completely arrested! The undigested food mass can cause various kinds of digestive disorders. Undigested food becomes soil for bacteria which ferment and decompose it. Its poisonous by-products, include alcohol, a narcotic that destroys or inhibits nerve function. It plays havoc with nerves of the digestive tract, suspending their vital action such that constipation may well be a result.

A well known publication on the subject of food combining is Dr. Herbert Shelton's Food Combining Made Easy which sets the following basic rules of proper food combining:

• Eat acids and starches at separate meals. Acids neutralize the alkaline medium required for starch digestion and the result is fermentation and indigestion. 
  
  
• Eat protein foods and carbohydrate foods at separate meals. Protein foods require an acid medium for digestion.
  
  
• Eat but one kind of protein food at a meal.
  
  
• Eat proteins and acid foods at separate meals. The acids of acid foods inhibit the secretion of the digestive acids required for protein digestion. Undigested protein putrefies in bacterial decomposition and produces some potent poisons.
  
  
• Eat fats and proteins at separate meals. Some foods, especially nuts, are over 50% fat and require hours for digestion.
  
  
• Eat sugars (fruits) and proteins at separate meals.
  
  
• Eat sugars (fruits) and starchy foods at separate meals. Fruits undergo no digestion in the stomach and are held up if eaten with foods that require digestion in the stomach. 
  
  
• Eat melons alone. They combine with almost no other food.
  
  
• Desert the desserts. Eaten on top of meals they lie heavy on the stomach, requiring no digestion there, and ferment. Bacteria turn them into alcohols and vinegars and acetic acids.

(From the book Food Combining Made Easy by Dr. Herbert Shelton.)

The consequences of eating meat and potatoes at the same time have been said to be severe, so before your next burger and fries, consider that besides the fact that meat is not an ideal food, visualize this combination of foods entering your stomach.

It takes one kind of enzyme to digest the potato, and a totally different one to digest the meat. The two enzymes clash, neutralizing each other, and the mixture rots inside your intestines. The free radicals produced attack the intestinal walls, potentially causing disease, even cancer.

Certain classes of food require different enzymes, different rates of digestion, and different pH's for proper digestion. Cooperating with the body's natural digestive processes will help you to optimize digestion, build strength and stamina, conserve energy, and strengthen your immune system.

Those nutritionists who warn us about food combining have provided many rules, including the following, designed to aid digestion:

• Fruits and vegetables should always be eaten at separate meals. Eat only one concentrated protein food or starch at a meal.
  
  
• Drink your fresh vegetable or fruit juices 30 minutes before your meals. Otherwise, avoid drinking liquids 30 minutes before meals, during meals, and for one to two hours following meals as liquids dilute the digestive juices and hinder digestion.
  
  
• Avoid drinking liquids which are too cold (out of the refrigerator, or with ice) or too hot (close to the boiling point) since the temperature extremes stress the digestive system and may cause indigestion.
  
  
• Since most dessert items do not combine well with foods eaten at meals, it is best to avoid them or eat the desserts suggested in the recipe section as a full meal.
  
  
• Eat only when hungry.
  
  
• Avoid eating immediately before or after strenuous exercise.
  
  
• Avoid eating when under physical or mental distress.
  
  
• Thoroughly chew all foods and juices.
  
  
• Avoid overeating.
  
  
• Avoid eating three to four hours before retiring to bed. Fruit or fruit juice can cause a wakeful unpleasant night's sleep. You will sleep more soundly without fruit.

For
Why all of the above is a load of old rubbish!

In September 1999, Nutrition News Focus published the following:

Tee-hee!! Sorry, this is just so laughable that a scientist cannot take this so-called theory with any degree of seriousness. The theory of food combining basically states that eating the wrong combinations of foods causes a variety of problems because different foods require different enzymes for their digestion. For instance, eating protein with carbohydrates is supposed to cause the protein to not be digested, which will then ferment and putrefy, spending up to two years in the large intestine. It's all fiction.

This type of suggestion lives up to the "Tell a big enough lie and people believe it" school. The body puts out a variety of digestive enzymes in combination. Digestion begins in the mouth, continues in the stomach, but really cranks up in the small intestine with different aspects of digestion occurring along the way. Pancreatic juice is secreted into the small intestine and contains enzymes that digest proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. We have evolved to eat meals of mixed foods. No human population has ever subsisted on eating single foods at a time.

Here's what you need to know. An especially ludicrous variant of the food combining theory is that when you don't digest foods properly, you get fat. Well, exactly the opposite happens - if you don't digest foods properly, you absorb fewer calories. This erroneous assumption was the basis for a book that was on the New York Times bestseller list for more than two years. 

In April 1996, The University of California at Berkeley Wellness Letter published the following:

Food combining: A myth that never dies.

As if people didn't have enough worries, there are always books on the market purveying notions about food combining. Some say that it's vital to eat foods in the right combinations - never combining, for instance, carbohydrates and protein at the same meal. They usually also recommend that fruits always be eaten raw and alone, because otherwise they will ferment and turn toxic in the stomach.

There's no evidence to support such contentions, according to Dr. Sheldon Margen, Professor Emeritus of Public Health Nutrition. Nearly all foods are themselves combinations. If you eat beans, for example, you're getting carbohydrates (sugars and starches), protein and fiber, among other things. Bread combines protein, carbohydrates, a little fat and many other things. A simple dish like macaroni and cheese, a peanut butter sandwich, or oatmeal with milk contains sugars, starches, protein and fat. Our digestive system handles food combinations very efficiently. The process begins in the mouth as we chew food and saliva acts upon it, beginning the breakdown of starches into sugars. Other enzymes come into play along the line, resulting in almost complete digestion and absorption of nutrients, no matter how they are combined.

As for that supposedly fermenting fruit, anyone who has studied human physiology can tell you that fermentation does not occur in the stomach. Fruit is nutritious, raw or cooked, and is readily digested in combination with other foods, including vegetables, grains and dairy products. Fruit is not a hard-and-fast category anyway: many things we call vegetables, such as tomatoes, are really fruits.

Nearly all foods are themselves combinations

The overwhelming weight of evidence is on the side of a varied, balanced diet with foods eaten in nutritious, appetizing combinations. Most vitamins and minerals are best utilized when consumed as part of a complex mixture of foods. For instance, foods high in vitamin C (such as fruits) boost the body's absorption of iron from grains. That's one reason fruit and whole grains make such a good breakfast combination.

Variety aids digestion, rather than making it more difficult.

So, which argument is right?

Some people are telling us that food combining is bad, and others are telling us that it’s okay to combine. We must therefore exercise our freedom of choice until a definitive answer is proven.

Of course, if certain combinations of foods seem to disagree with you, then eat them separately. I’m still waiting for them to bring out licorice-sardine flavored ice cream.

Jeffrey the Barak is the publisher of the-vu.com

You are here: the-vu> Health> Food Combining