Food Combining
| See Also | Naturopathic Therapies |
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| See Also | Clinical Nutrition |
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Food Combining is based on selecting the foods that you eat in a meal based on how well those foods are digested when combined. This concept does not necessarily restrict specific foods, rather it is a guide of what foods to eat together. The Food Combining Chart explains the combinations that are advised.
Benefits
Food combining is often an effective way of eating for those people that have a slow digestion or for those that experience digestive concerns that worsen when a variety of different foods are eaten at once or after a larger meal. Although improved digestion can lead to weight loss, this is not the main emphasis of food combining. Talk to your Naturopathic Doctor to determine if food combining is right for you.
Food Combining may be recommended as a means of addressing the following Digestive Conditions.
- Gas or Bloating especially when it is worse after a large meal or a meal with different foods (such as after eating at a buffet)
- Hypochlorhydria (Low Stomach Acid)
- Hyperchlorhydria (High Stomach Acid)
- Heavy feeling after a large meal
Guidelines
The general guidelines for food combining include:
1. Proteins Do Not Combine with Starches. The breaking of this rule heads the list as being the worst of the disease-producing dietary habits. It takes a series of acid digestive juices to digest the protein and a series of alkaline digestive juices to digest the starch. When you eat a protein and a starch togetjer, they neutralize themselves and minimal digestion is the result. Thus, food does not digest, it putrefies.
- Exceptions:
- A) Avacados combine well with all starchy vegetables and grains.
- B) Legumes combine fairly well with grains.
2. Fruits Do Not Combine with Starches. The digestion of fruits requires hardly any time at all in the mouth and stomach while starches require most of their digestion time in those areas. The fruit sugars are quickly absorbed into the intestines while the starch requires digestion in the mouth and stomach. If the fruit sugars are held up in the stomach while digestion of starch continues, the food will putrefy or decay in the system.
3. Fruits Do Not Combine with Proteins. The fruit sugars leave the stomach quickly and are absorbed directly into the intestines while the porotein requires significantly more time digesting in the stomach. If the sugars are held back in the stomach while trying to digest the protein, the food with which the fruit sugars mix will putrefy.
4. Fruits Do Not Combine with Vegetables. Remember that fruits are cleansers and vegetables are builders. Tomatoes are a fruit and an exception to this. Tomatoes combine with the following vegetables: leaf lettuce, celery, okra, cucumbers, eggplant, bell peppers, and summer squash.
5. Eat Melons Alone or Leave them Alone. Melons combine with NO OTHER FOOD. They are in their simplest form and require no digestion at all in the stomach. If they are held back in the stomach at 104 degrees Farenheit or 40 degrees Celcius, while digesting anything, they will putrefy.
6. Acid Fruits Do Not Combine with Sweet Fruits. These two food groups definately repel each other. The chemistry of these fruits is not compatible. For example, bananas, grapefruit, oranges, raisins, tangerines, and prunes.
7. Do Not Mix More than 4 or 5 Fruits or Vegetables at a Meal. Our digestive system's ability to effectively process the foods we eat depends, in part, on not overloading the gastrointestinal tract.
The Food Combining Chart explains the combinations that are advised.
