Combination is Key

It’s not only what we eat, but also what we eat it with that matters. Our Standard American Diet (or SAD) as many call it, is based on some of the worst food combinations.

For instance, meat and potatoes do not mix well in the human body. Potatoes are starches and are broken down in the mouth mechanically by chewing and chemically with saliva. When a starch reaches the stomach, it requires virtually no acid for digestion so the stomach lets it pass through to the small intestine where it is further broken down chemically and absorbed into the blood through the wall of the intestine.

Try this exercise – take a bite of a plain baked potato and hold it in your mouth and salivate. Within a few minutes it will dissolve into a mush – especially if you chew it. Hold a piece of meat in your mouth and minutes later you still have a solid piece of meat.

Meat is mechanically broken down in the mouth by chewing, but chemical digestion by saliva is minimal. When meat or a protein reaches the stomach, it requires an acid bath to propel the breakdown and digestion before it is ready to pass into the small intestine. The problem is that when we combine proteins and starches (meat and potatoes) in the same meal, the stomach does not have the ability to separate the mixture. Therefore, the starches get trapped in the stomach until the acid has sufficiently digested the protein. The starches react negatively with the stomach acid and ferment and explode in the stomach, thus causing acid reflux, indigestion, gas and bloating.

Another poor food combination is fruit with anything else – especially melons. Fruit is great, but should be eaten alone or left alone so your belly doesn’t moan! Fruit and melons are the simplest form of food and require very little digestion. When combined with other foods, the nutritional value of fruit is lost as the fruit ferments in the stomach. Eat melons first (watermelon, honeydew, papaya, cantaloupe), then citrus fruits (oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit), then berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries…), then bananas, followed by stone fruits (cherries, plums, avocados). I give you permission to eat desert first before a meal (if it contains fruit). The worst thing to eat after a meal (especially one containing protein) is fruit – particularly watermelon, cantaloupe or honeydew (which is usually the status-quo for a restaurant fruit dish).

Three things that should NEVER be consumed period - alone or with anything else is aspartame (artificial sweetener), high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and trans-fats from hydrogenated oils. I believe these three substances account for the majority of our nation’s health woes including cancer, obesity, type II diabetes, heart attack, attention deficit disorder and many more. If you want to make a profound change in your health eliminate these three things and all products containing them from your diet immediately.

Once you get a handle on proper food combination and eliminate the intake of toxic substances, you will be surprised how fast digestive and intestinal problems will vanish along with pounds of unwanted weight.

For more food combining tips and healthy advice, check out my friend Dr. Wayne "The Mango Man" Pickering's:  Defeating Bad Eating Program