In november, I started an online course called Healing Diets. It is from this school called Pure Health, founded in Colorado, but then moved to London. It has a lot of courses you can take, ranging from Naturopaty, Idrology, Herbal medicine, Quantum botanicals, Natural physician,  and some combinations that will give you a diploma. Since it’s online, you can go at your own speed. Probably I’ll be done with mine in May/June. To get a diploma to be a healing diets coach I will additionally have to go to the school in London and follow a two-week hands on class. I really like it so far, I’m learning about many diseases, how the body’s digestion works, and how to cleanse and overcome different diseases in a natural way, changing your diet and listening to your body’s needs.
Every month I have a different lesson that focuses on one argument, for example one was on water and fasting, another one on organs cleansing etc. Each lesson then has a bunch of assignments which are basically tons of reaserches to do on your own and books to read, and always an essay on a chosen argument by each student.
The last lesson I did, I choose to write about Food combination, which was very interesting to me, and I thought about sharing it here. So many food combinations that we take for granted are in reality very hard on our digestion and this may help you if you are encountering some digestive symptoms, such as bloating, gas etc we all know the list 😉

FOOD COMBINATION

Our society has been trying to encourage people to eat a balanced diet, but this gets misinterpreted many times by thinking of a balanced meal. At least that is what I do at home a lot: I’ll cook some brown rice, then I’ll add some sautéed greens, some cooked beans or tofu on top and toasted nuts or seeds, while I’m thinking in my head this is a great balanced meal. Of course it’s much better than eating a burger with fries, but learning about these food combinations makes you more aware of what actually happens after you swallow your food.

If we look at our ancestors around the world, individual foods were eaten alone, or combined with only one or two foods. These primitive habits were practiced for thousands of years and are the foundation of our digestive system.
The bigger the variation of different ingredients on your plate, the bigger the challenge your digestive system has to do it’s job well.

There is a big difference between eating and nourishing our body: the first means to just fill your tummy up, and second to give our body the nutrients it needs for its health. What benefits our body is essentially not what we eat but what we manage to digest and assimilate.

A good digestion is ensured by a good food combination. Lets look at what a bad food combination can lead to:

• A diet consisting of incompatible foods generates fermentation, putrefaction and decomposition, transforming the food into toxins (co2, alcohol, bacteria etc.).

• Food combining is centered on the idea that meals should be kept simple in order to be digested properly by enzymatic action, the natural way our body works to break down food and absorb nutrients. Since different foods require their own specific enzymes, too many different foods in one meal confuse the body, which is not able to produce all of the necessary enzymes simultaneously. This leads to a whole list of digestive problems, for example bloating, intestinal gas, abdominal pain, heartburn etc. If you are experiencing the digestive issues, and not treated after long time, this “issue” will lead to a much larger problem.

FACTORS THAT CAN LESSEN THE EFFECTS OF BAD FOOD COMBINATIONS:

• A strong digestive system
• Different quantities of each food can help significantly. For example equal quantities by weight of ghee and honey are a bad combination-ghee is cooling, but honey is heating- whereas mixing a 2:1 ratio is not toxic.
• Very often spices and herbs are added in some types of cooking (for example Indian) to help make foods compatible or to ease a powerful effect, like cilantro in very spicy food.
• If our bodies have become accustomed to a certain food combination through many years of use, such as eating cheese with apples, then it is likely that our body has made some adaptation or become accustomed to this.
• Eating a bad combination occasionally usually does not upset the digestion too much.

FOOD COMBINATION RULES:

• Never eat carbohydrates with acid foods at the same meal: for example bread, potatoes with lemons, oranges, other sour fruit. Fruit acids not only prevent carbohydrate digestion but they also favor their fermentation.
• Never eat a concentrated protein with a concentrated carbohydrate at the same meal: so never eat nuts, meat, eggs, cheese or other protein with bread, cereals, potatoes, sweet fruits, etc. the digestion of carbohydrates (starch and sugars) and of protein is so different that when they are mixed in the stomach they interfere with the digestion of each other. An acid process (gastric digestion) and an alkaline process(salivary digestion) can not proceed together at all for long, as the rising acidity of the stomach contents soon completely stops carbohydrate digestion, and this is followed by fermentation.
• Never consume two concentrated proteins at the same meal: don’t eat nuts and meat, or eggs and cheese etc.
• Do not consume proteins with fats: fat depresses the action of the gastric glands and inhibits the pouring out of the proper gastric juices for proteins.
• Do not eat acid fruits with proteins
• Do not consume starches and sugars together: jams, fruit butter, honey with bread, cereals, cakes. Monosaccharides and disaccharides digest quicker than polysaccharides, and are prone to ferment in the stomach while awaiting the completion of starch digestion.
• Eat sugars (fruits) and starchy foods at separate meals: this is due to the various digestion times required to break these foods into sugars that the body would accept. For example we should never eat acid-fruit sugars, which must be digested within an hour, with sweet fruit sugars such as cherries, figs, dates, raisins, that require up to three hours to be properly digested. Starchy foods require up to two hours or more before they get converted into sugars, so the acid fruits would be held up while waiting to be digested for up to two hours, and would ferment. In addition, the acids from these fruits would destroy the starch enzymes and whereby starch digestion would be suspended.
• Do not consume melons with any other foods: this means watermelon, honeydew melon, cantaloupe, and other melons always alone.

The images above show graphically proper food combination.

I’ve learned that there are so many bad combinations out there that people take for granted: for example how many people eat a sandwich for lunch? Or a hamburger, which is bread plus meat. Another bad combination is Melon and prosciutto which is a SUPER popular summer dish in Italy. Not to talk about eating Fruit after meals or cakes with honey or syrups, and soo many other dishes out there.

I thought I was doing it all right, but realized now that I often eat really bad food combinations. Obviously one can’t follow these rules to the thumb but maybe one meal a day you can try to follow them, or if you are having digestive issues like gas, bloating etc this could be (and probably is) the best solution for your problems.

I think if you start to make small changes at the time and see how your tummy feels or the symptoms that you have, you will start to realize what foods and food combinations you can manage to digest easily without having any issues. And especially not getting stressed out about the right combinations, because what really matters is listening to your body and the signals that it is trying to tell you.