Healthy Food Combining Systems Made Easy

This is a continuation to my previous article on Acidosis, Acidic and Alkaline Diets

What’s the best way to eat your meals?

Certainly our ancestral Cave Men and Cave Women didn’t sit down and enjoy a 3 course meal with an anti-pasta, primi piatti and secondi piatti.  They ate what they had.  If you hunt and killed a buffalo, then you had buffalo for dinner.   Today.  And tomorrow.  And the day after.

Here are a couple of rules guidelines to remember when it comes time to food combining:

1. Eat Vegetables and Protein
2. Eat Vegetables and Starches
3. Avoid eating Protein and Starches
4. Eat Fruit alone (sometimes with nuts)

Fruits can be broken down to 3 categories

1. Sweet Fruits (bananas, grapes, raisons, etc)
2. Acidic Fruits (oranges, pineapple, kiwi, etc)
3. Melons (cantaloupe, honeydew, etc)

However, you can eat:

1. Sweet fruits with Acidic fruits
2. Acidic fruits with nuts
3. Always eat melons alone

Healthy Food Combining and Portion Control

As well, instead of eating 3 large meals, try 3 medium size meals and 3 large snacks.  Instead of 1000 Calories per meal, try 650 Calories for a smaller meal, and 350 Calories for a larger snack a few hours later?

You can look at the food combining rules above and see the good and bad to my Italian diet:

1. melon and prosciutto BAD
2. spaghetti and meatballs or pappardelli al cinghiale BAD
3. meat and white bread (or potatoes) BAD

Hmm, this will be a challenge here in Italy.  My problem, not yours.

Why is this bad?

Digestion

Digestion. (Any of my teammates or classmates remember sitting in Dr. Peter Weldon’s McGill Physiology class on digestion?)

Basically, Carbohydrates starts digesting at the saliva, Protein in the stomach, and Fats in the intestine (duodenum).

Protein like acidic environments. Carbs like alkaline.

And fruits are easy to digest, which is why they should be eaten alone, preferably as a snack.  The added benefit is the water in fruits which we all need.

One of the worst side effects of eating beans is the flatulence (i.e. gas or “farts”) and the possible bloating that goes with it.   This could happen with fruit like wine grapes.. you have to allow it to be easily digested or else it may ferment in your bowels and you know that side effect (sorry, but it won’t make you drunk!)

The point is try to eat in different food combinations and note what works for you, and what doesn’t work for you.