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Food Combining: Not based on digestible science

                               

Dear Dr. Blonz,  I keep hearing about the need to eat foods in a particular pattern.  What is your opinion on this type of combining foods, or that it is actually bad for the body to eat certain foods together at the same meal. DI, Cincinnati, OH

 

Dear DI,    Most of us have found that certain foods or food combinations work better than others.  This is more a result of individual tastes than a defect we all share.  There appears to be no general physical reason that we have to refrain from including a variety of wholesome foods at every meal.  People may experience temporary discomfort when they introduce new foods, or those they haven’t eaten for a while.   Problems can also be experienced when eating under stress, or at off-times, such as with a time-zone displaced dining hour.   There is, however, no physiological “need” for the human species to combine foods in a special way, or eat in a certain sequence,  to assure health.  

 

The basic principles of this questionable theory  appear in a 1922 book titled the "Mucusless Diet Healthing System" by Arnold Ehret.  They reappear in 1951 in "Food Combining Made Easy" by Herbert Shelton, who started Dr. Shelton’s Health School in San Antonio, Texas.  You can then find other books and approaches, including "Fit for Life" by Harvey & Marilyn Diamond;  “The Hay Diet”  named after Dr William H Hay; and various other spins on the theme.  As it goes, an easy-to-digest food, such as fruit, should never be eaten with proteins or fatty foods, which take longer to digest.  To do so delays, as this unappetizing theory goes - digestion of the fruit and allow the fruit sugar to ferment and putrefy right inside the body.  The decay process then contributes to several health problems.  Other forbidden combinations include starchy foods, such as bread or potatoes, together with protein foods, such as meat or fish.

 

Some of the “logic” used to support the food combination theory is that proteins are digested in an acid (low pH) environment, while starches get digested in an base, or alkali (high pH) environment.   If the meals we ate contained both proteins and starches they could not be digested in the same place at the same.  The body, however, has a more efficient way of digesting its food.

 

There are separate digestive enzymes for the protein, carbohydrate and fats in our foods; and they operate in different regions of the digestive system.    The treatments given one type food, however, do not normally interfere with those received by another.  Protein, for example,  is first denatured in the stomach while being churned through an acid environment by the muscles of the stomach.   The acid is neutralized as the food leaves the stomach, and the rest of the digestive process, including the digestion and absorption of protein carbohydrate and fat, takes place in a more alkali environment.   If starches happen to be present in a protein meal, they travel along and waiting for their turn.   The idea that the starches would ferment in the stomach makes very little sense in light of the fact that the acid environment in the stomach is not conducive to fermentation.  Natural forms of fermentation take place in the large intestine, but that has little do with a possible combination of protein and carbohydrate at a particular meal. 

 

Dr BlonzDo you have a question that involves nutrition, health and wellness? Dr. Ed Blonz holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in nutrition, and has more than 25 years of experience in the fields of nutrition, foods and health. He is the author of seven books and writes the nationally syndicated column, "On Nutrition," available through United Features Syndicate.

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Copyright Ed Blonz, Ph.D.