Food Combining

You may or may not have heard of it, but i’m here to give you the basics! Iv’e been following this systematic way to eating for years (or try to!), and I find it extremely beneficial for proper digestion and for feeling GOOD after you eat. Meaning not bloated, gassy, overly full, etc. Here’s the scoop on food combining…

1. Eat fruit alone on an empty stomach.
2. Eat proteins and carbs separately.
3. Eat only 1 main protein per meal.
4. Vegetables are neutral and can be eaten with proteins or with carbs.
5. Treat juices, fruit or vegetable, as a meal. Do not combine with other foods.
6. Do not combine sweet fruit with acidic fruit, and melons should be eaten alone.
7. Wait at least 4 hours in between meals.

So why all these rules? What does it all mean? The theory behind Food Combining which dates back to the nineteenth century, is that specific foods require specific enzymes for the most efficient and complete digestion. For example, starches are broken down and digested by one type of enzyme, fats are broken down by another, proteins another, and so on. The quicker the enzymes can break down food into its nutritional components, the less time it spends in your stomach and the less likely you are to experience gas, bloating, constipation.

Additionally, every food has a specific transit time for digestion. Some take longer to digest than others. Liquids are the fastest and animal proteins take the longest. Let’s use fruit for example. You may think a wise and healthy decision is choosing fruit for dessert after a having a steak dinner. What happens here is the steak you just ate takes a while to digest and the fruit does not. The steak sits in your stomach waiting for the enzyme to break it down for digestion. If you have fruit after the steak, the fruit quickly passes through and essentially sits on top of the steak unable to move into digestion mode. The fruit is stuck on top of the protein, fermenting, creating gas in your system. Enter: bloating and discomfort! The same is true for combining proteins with starches. They are both broken down by different enzymes and the digestion process does not combine well. Causing most people to feel overly full, bloated, and sometimes gassy and/or constipated. So say goodbye to meat and potatoes, spaghetti and meatballs, rice and beans. All these are examples of poor food combining, causing most people to feel uncomfortable. However, that does not mean you can’t eat this food! Just not together. The good new is that most vegetables are neutral and you can eat them with starches (pasta primavera!), or proteins (chicken & roasted veggies!).

Here, I leave you with your go-to cheat sheet to food combination:

I’d like to say I follow this religiously. However, I definitely do not all the time! We must live! Have your spaghetti and meatballs, shrimp and rice stir-fry, pizza with all the toppings. But…a big reason you may not feel great after, is because of food combining. So when you need to get back on track, this is a smart and gentle way to reboot your whole digestive system and feel GOOD after meals.