Scientific Food Combining Rules

Food combining is not just wild ideas out of someone's head, but actually has a scientific basis based on how the human digestive system processes food. Proper food combination also helps many people alleviate their digestive problems and eliminate the need for any digestive medication and has also helped people with IBS, acid reflux, acid indigestion, etc.

Dr. William Howard Hay introduced food combining in the early 1900s and his basic premise is that overacidity from the products of digestion results in a lowering of the body's vital alkaline reserve, and this depletion causes toxemia or autointoxication.

Modern medicine has also come to recognize in recent years that it takes acidity to support sickness - a slightly alkaline person will not contract degenerative disease.

Food combining refers to the combination of foods which are compatible with each other in terms of the ingredients needed to digest each type of food. Food combining is a component of optimal nutrition because it allows the body to digest and extract the maximum nutrients from the food eaten.

Proper Food Combining Reduces Wear & Tear On The Body

Because food combining dramatically reduces the amount of energy used in processing food, it is something that athletes should carefully consider, although it will improve energy and digestion for everyone.

Let's start with the most common food combination - starches and proteins. Some vegetables are slightly starchy but the concentrated starches are grains (and grain products such as pasta), potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Starches begin digestion in the mouth where amylase enzymes are released and this is one of the reasons to chew food well - to mix enzymes for proper digestion. Carbohydrates are turned to sugar for energy and this starts in the mouth. Also, chewing well makes digestion much easier on the rest of the body, since the load of breaking down large food particles reduces the amount of energy required to break down food.

The starches are acidified passing through the stomach but not processed much more till they enter the small intestine where the pancreas releases more starch digesting enzymes.

Protein does not begin digestion with enzymes in the mouth, but with acid in the stomach and this acid and the starch enzymes neutralize each other since they cannot both work at the same time. This results in poor digestion and when this combination enters the small intestine, the acid also tries to neutralze the enzymes released by the pancreas for digesting starch, which can result in more indigestion symptoms.

Also, the fats and oils in the foods we eat do not get much processing until they reach the small intestine where the gallbladder releases bile, which is what the body uses to break down fat. This bile also neutralizes the pancreatic starch enzymes, resulting in more digestion problems.

Fruits are digested very quickly and if eaten with other foods are held up in the digestive process and begin to ferment slightly, which can cause another digestive problem for some people. That is why fruits should always be eaten alone.

Some foods also digest very well together - for example green vegetables digest well with anything but fruit, although two exceptions are celery and lettuce which will digest with fruits.

Melons should also be eaten alone although many people combine them with fruit without a problem. You should do some experimenting with food combining to see what works for you, since some people can tolerate some food combinations better than others such as combining starchy vegetables such as carrots, squash, beets, turnips, etc. with proteins.

To the right are two pictures and the X-Ray is an actual image of someone's large intestine.

Note the irregular shape which is a result of poor diet and can result in conditions such as polyps, IBS, diverticulitis, cancer, etc.

The other picture shows what a healthy colon should look like.

Something that helps many people is a high quality digestive enzyme which may help to alleviate symptoms of poor digestion.

Another way to improve digestion and help heal the digestive system is to take herbs specially formulated to heal the digestive system and restore regularity and avoid a colon that looks like the X-Ray picture above.

The mucosal lining in the digestive tract is often damaged from the abuse and this damage can result in chronic digestive problems. Our herbal formula was designed to help repair the lining and restore healthy bowel function. Many people also have waste build up in the colon from years of poor digestion and elimating this waste can greatly speed digestive healing and energize the whole body.

Once the digestive system is cleansed, food combining can help it to stay healthy and free of problems. Many people can cleanse their digestive system and clear up digestive problems without concerning themselves with food combining, but they still must eat healthy to maintain freedom from digestive problems.

Many people also wonder why some have to pay more attention to food combining than others, but that is because everyone is different - just like our fingerprints.

Here is an excellent resource for more info on digestive problems and information on how to use food combining to eliminate many digestive problems as well as delicious recipes to help you accomplish it easily. Just click on the picture.

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Free Food Combining Chart