I love pizza. I say this because I could eat pizza all day, every day. However, when I do eat pizza, I get sluggish, and if I eat too much I get an upset stomach and indigestion. Why? The most likely answer comes from proponents of food combining. What is food combining?
Basic chemistry tells us that acids and alkalines neutralize each other. If you don't know much chemistry, think of them like positive and negative numbers: they cancel each other out if you add them together. This is basic to all of chemistry. From this it is natural to assume that if some foods need to be digested by acid and others by alkalines, then they can't both be digested at the same time.
And, in fact, there are foods that require an alkaline solution and others that require an acid solution to be digested. A steak or any other substance high in concentrated proteins requires the acid environment. Breads, pastas, and other concentrated carbohydrate sources require an alkaline environment. Common sense tells us that these foods will not be digested efficiently if they are eaten together.
Additionally, the enzymes that our bodies produce to digest certain foods will be immediately destroyed in an acidic solution. Digesting foods that require these enzymes is not possible if we have any acids in our stomach when we consume them. A good example of this is having tomatoes and potatoes at the same meal: the acids in the tomato effectively neutralize the enzymes needed to digest the potato.
There are several rules that make up a food-combining diet. The most basic are to never have the following combinations in a single meal:
- concentrated proteins and concentrated carbohydrates
- acids and starches
- fats and concentrated proteins
- fruits and concentrated proteins
There are different approaches, some with more complex rules and guidelines, but essentially they are extensions of these four axioms.
Many people advocate the use of food combining to lose weight. As I understand it, the arguments are first that if we digest our food more efficiently, we tend to eat less, and second that by not combining foods we tend to avoid many of the worst offenders (like pizza) for weight management.
While the chemistry of this seems obvious and common-sense, research has yet to prove or dispute the claims of major food-combining supporters. Scientists on both sides of the issue are making claims, but nothing has been substantiated yet.
I have experimented with food-combining on myself over several years, and while I can't say I have noticed a difference in my weight, I can say that I generally have more energy if I combine my foods properly.
Here, I think, is the most basic guide of all: keep it simple and natural. Eating a large meal is harder on the body than eating the same food but spread out into two or three smaller meals. Have a piece of fruit in the morning, then 30 minutes later have some toast or an egg. Rather than eating it all at once, space it out so the components can each digest individually. This is how our predecessors ate, and this is what our systems likely adapted to over the millennia.
Yes, I love pizza, and I still sometimes eat pizza. Generally, however, I try to stick to meals that are simpler in nature. By eating all the things I like as pieces through the day (an apple here, some rice there, a bowl of soup now, a potato later, a fruit smoothie in the late morning, a salad in the afternoon, etc), I am full of energy and vitality. And, in the end, that's what most of us are looking for.
Resources:
- Food Combining [www.internethealthlibrary.com]
- Food Combining for Health [chart] [www.thewolfeclinic.com]
- Food Combining Diet: Pros and Cons [www.actabit.com]
Other news
- The pen is mightier than the candy bar: New insulin pen has memory chip [www.msnbc.msn.com]
- Which chocolate company sponsored this research? Some cocoa improves blood flow in the brain [www.msnbc.msn.com]
- And Leon's getting laaaaarger! Waistlines keep expanding around the globe [www.msnbc.msn.com]
From the editor
First off, kudos to anyone who can name the source of the tag line in the third 'Other news' bullet item. Hopefully a few of you will get this, but I imagine most of you won't.
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Healthy thoughts,
Jeff
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