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2.3.12

Close-up of a white plate with cauliflower and red peppers and a small dish with cauliflower dip

Do you ever feel heavy and tired when you’re eating all raw food? Do you know someone who is going through this experience? I mean, isn’t the raw food diet supposed to make you look and feel better? Where is the glowing skin, svelte body and endless amounts of energy, right?

Although changing your diet is key to shifting how you look and feel, the other half of the coin is about making sure you’re eating the right foods at the right time. Doing so helps your body assimilate nutrients for energy and cleanse out waste. If food can’t move through the body properly, it becomes overloaded with toxicity, leaving you feeling bad even though the quality of food you’re eating is good. With a few simple tweaks to your diet, proper food pairing can have you experiencing more energy, better skin, better sleep and natural weight loss within a couple of days.

What is Food Combining?

The gist of food combining is that different types of foods digest at different rates and with different enzymes. Some foods digest better in an acidic environment, while others digest better in an alkaline environment.

When you eat several foods that digest at different rates, call for different enzymes or need different pH levels, your digestion gets out of whack and things begin to rot and ferment in your body. This “sludge” turns into stored toxins. When your body can’t digest food properly, it misses out on being able to absorb the nutrients in food, leaving you with low energy, breakouts and poor sleep. It’s an all around bad deal.

All food combining guidelines take into account the speed at which food digests. Fruit digests the quickest, then greens, then non-starchy vegetables, then starches and finally, digesting the slowest is protein. Eating foods in the correct order (according to their transit times) ensures a traffic jam-free (and toxin-free) digestive tract.

When you get the combining right, your body gets to use the nutrients in the food. This leaves you with more energy, which inevitably equals more beauty.

Here are the food combining basics:

  • Starches + Veggies = OK
  • Proteins + Veggies = OK
  • Proteins + Starches = No No
  • Plant Proteins + Plant Proteins = OK
  • Animal Proteins + Animal Proteins = No No
  • Starches + Starches = OK
  • Fats + Proteins (animal or plant) = No No (or pair moderately)
  • Fats + Carbohydrates = OK
  • Fats + Starches = OK
  • Fruits are best eaten on an empty stomach
  • Fruit + Raw greens = OK (except melons)

Common Raw Food Combos That Can Wreck Havoc on Your Health

All of these guidelines can seem overwhelming at first, but it’s really quite simple to find meals that work. Let’s get on the right track by eliminating a couple of common food combinations in the raw food world that are just plain bad for your body.

1. Avocado with Nuts

Most raw foodies are really into avocados because they’re a good source of fat. They’ll put them on and in everything. You’ll see them on salads, in dressings, in smoothies and on sandwiches. The combination you want to stay away from is eating avocados (a fat) with nuts (a protein). The raw fat properties of the avocado have an inhibiting effect of the digestion of the protein in nuts.

2. Fruit for dessert

White porcelain bowl with strawberry and granola

Fruit digests the quickest. It passes through the stomach in a matter of twenty to thirty minutes. Eating fruit for dessert will cause a traffic jam in your digestive tract. The fruit will sit on top of whatever else is in your stomach and begin to ferment. By the time it reaches your intestines, there will be barely any nutrients left to absorb. This will leave you feeling bloated and tired. Fruit is best eaten first or with green veggies. After twenty minutes, you can follow it up with a protein or starch.

3. Green smoothie with seeds and/or nuts

Green smoothies can easily turn into a hodgepodge of ingredients. It’s easy to get excited about a nutritious drink and go with the mentality that the more nutrients you can pack in there, the better. To keep it nice and easy for the digestive tract, try to stick with green veggies, fruits (except for mangoes) and water in your smoothie. Things get difficult when we add in seeds, nut milks, fruit juice, sweeteners, etc.

4. Olive Oil + Nuts

Olive oil and nuts are commonly combined in pesto and salad dressings. Olive oil is a fat and nuts are a protein. Again, the raw fat has an inhibiting effect of the digestion of the protein.

Close-up of a salad dish with nuts and olive oil in a small dip dish

5. Quinoa Salad

Starches (like quinoa) and greens (like a salad) are okay to eat during the same sitting, but really should not be eaten together. The greens digest faster than the quinoa, so they are best eaten first.

6. Hemp milk with an un-sprouted grain for breakfast

Hemp milk is considered a protein, even though the seeds have changed form. The grains are a starch. Proteins require an acidic environment to be broken down. Starches require enzymes that act only on an alkaline environment. If an acidic environment and an alkaline environment are attempting to coexist, they end up neutralizing each other. The digestive system then goes into overdrive in an attempt to secrete more digestive juices to try to break down the food again, and so on and so on. This will leave you tired, gassy and/or bloated. Sprouting your grains is a good option. Sprouting grains neutralizes the enzyme inhibitors and starts the production of beneficial enzymes, which make them easier to digest.

Please leave a comment below. What has been your experience with food combining? Does it make a difference?

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Comments


  1. Another informative post. Love this. Thank you!

    sasha | 02.03.2012 | Reply
  2. I have a question about the fruit on an empty stomach suggestion … my friends are telling me that this is a big no-no for diabetics, so we’re curious about this recommendation.

    Donna | 02.07.2012 | Reply
    • Fruit is fine on an empty stomach if it is eaten whole. Stay away from fruit juice if you are a diabetic, and limit fruit to one piece or two halves. Follow it no more than 30 minutes later with a protein meal. I am a registered nurse and I have worked with diabetics consistently. My dad, a diabetic, eats half an orange and half a banana every morning for potassium and his blood sugar readings are next to normal.

      Cynthia | 09.16.2012 | Reply
    • Donna, try reading the book, 80/10/10. I have blood sugar issues until I understood how to eat sweet fruit and drink fresh juices, without a sustained blood sugar reaction. The key is in having little to no fat at the same time, and low levels of fat & protein on a daily basis. Once you’ve read the book, it’ll make perfect sense. I went from eating a high-fat, “gourmet” raw food diet to a simpler, low-fat raw vegan model and it made all the difference. I can now drink a quart of fresh OJ with no problem, if I chose.

      Rae O. | 10.08.2013 | Reply
  3. Why can’t mango’s be added to green smoothies? What about chia seeds in green smoothies? I’m curious what rule is being broken here. Thanks.

    Mikael | 02.12.2012 | Reply
    • Because mango is a sweet fruit, which should not be mixed with anything else but other sweet fruit or sub-acid fruit. My understanding is that fruit should not be combined with anything. There are three classes of fruits: sweet, sub-acid, and acid. Sweet fruits like bananas can be mixed with sub-acid fruits like mangoes, but not with oranges and strawberries. Because all fruit digests so quickly, it should be eaten by itself. So a fruit smoothie consisting of just fruit, either sweet or acid, can be perfectly combined with its sub-acid group, and nothing more for best digestion. I’ve tried this myself with my leaky gut and it does make a difference.

      Cynthia | 09.16.2012 | Reply
      • Correction to my earlier reply: Actually, sweet fruits can be added to greens to make a smoothie; so can acid fruits, just not at the same time. It’s melons that need to be eaten separately, because they digest faster than any other food; they are actually pre-digested before you eat them! Sorry for the confusion….

        Cynthia | 09.21.2012 | Reply
      • Hi Cynthia,

        Have you done 80/10/10 to heal leaky gut? What worked for you and how long did it take?

        Thank you!!!

        sandeep | 11.18.2015 | Reply
  4. Thank you very much for such an educational article. I do have a few (read several) questions. Starches and carbs are mentioned in the general bulleted guide – is there a difference? You mentioned nuts to be a protein, but don’t most nuts and seeds (apart from peanuts) have more fats than protein? For example, is it bad to put walnuts in your oatmeal? Are sprouted grains a starch or a vegetable, and if so, at what point in the sprouting process? Is it OK to add barely-sprouted grains to a fruit and veggie smoothie? And are you sure that quinoa should be a starch with as much protein as it has? And with this much crossover even in individual natural foods, does it really matter that much which foods we combine? How bad is it to combine vegetable proteins with starches? And what if we are trying to get a balance of protein amino acids from different foods, like adding whole shredded coconut or nuts or seeds to our grains so that we don’t have to eat meat (not that meat is a complete protein either but pretty close to it.) Being that fat is apparently OK to eat with grains, would butter or coconut butter/oil/milk be a better alternative to add to a bowl of (barely-sprouted) grains than milk or whole coconut, which includes the protein?

    Besides trying to combine plant protein sources to achieve a complete protein (balanced in amino acids), I have also tried to combine protein or fat to my starches with the idea that the low-glycemic-index foods would cause the starches to break down slower in the body to make the energy last longer and not cause a sugar (and then insulin) spike in the blood. The idea with your article however (which I very much appreciate) is, if I understand correctly, to NOT slow down digestion. So any suggestions on how to, at the same time, get balanced amino acids and balanced blood sugar?

    Is protein best added onto the end of the meal? How long after I finish the starch? I can wait 20 minutes after my fruit/veggie smoothie before I have a second course for breakfast, and I can see the virtue in doing so, but most people cannot realistically have a 3-course meal for every meal… any suggestions? Thank you!!!

    • Hi Adam, so many questions! Glad you’re curious about learning more! You can count on more posts from us on this subject, but since you have some precise questions, We might suggest some in-depth reading on this. We suggest: Food Combining Bible: Your Complete Guide to Using the Hay Diet for Digestive Health and a Balanced Approach to Weight Loss by Jan Dries

      The Chalkboard | 11.16.2012 | Reply
      • Hats off to Adam for asking the questions that are on everybody’s mind about food combining I have asked these same questions and have never received answers on them. Is this not the purpose of the chalkboard to answer questions that people are posting about this very subject? Rather than being told to read books, which obviously Adam has done(due to his degree of questions) I too have read numerous books and articles on the subject of food combing in hopes of finding these very same answers Adam has asked. Please either answer these very specific questions of Adams, and mine. Or if know body knows the answers than please state that.
        Thank you
        Dwayne

        Dwayne | 02.25.2013 | Reply
        • Ditto–hats off to Adam for the questions. I’ve also read a lot on the subject of food combining, am frustrated with the contradicting and vague information I’ve come across and would appreciate hearing about other people’s experiences. The Food Combining Bible by Jan Dries is a wonderful start, but does not delve completely into these precise questions that Adam has mentioned. However, Dries’ book coupled with Paul Pitchford’s Healing with Whole Foods, which has an excellent chapter on food combining, has helped me round out all my readings on the subject the most. To answer some of Adam’s questions–to my knowledge–starches are one of the three main types of carbohydrates–a complex carbohydrate, different from the carbs known as “simple sugars” by their structural composition. All starches are carbohydrates, but not all carbohydrates are starch. Sprouting grains, including quinoa (which is actually more like a vegetable) increases its digestibility–but I don’t know at what point in the sprouting process. The sprouts of grains should be treated like starches, so they wouldn’t digest well combined with fruit (for example, a fruit and veggie smoothie). Have you tried combining vegetable proteins with starches (e.g. beans and rice)? A protein, be it animal or vegetable form, digests like a protein, so it wouldn’t be compatible with starches. Most times when I divert from the food combining guidelines, I suffer from indigestion, so from my personal experiences I’ve concluded that, yes, paying attention to food combinations is essential is you want the best digestibility and optimum health. If one observes carefully, one’s digestive fire is more effective around noon (an idea also supported in Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine), and in my personal experience, in the morning as well (when I’ve been able to digest taxing combinations a bit easier than in the evenings. However, that doesn’t mean it’s healthy in the long run). Yes, butter or coconut butter/oil/milk or even whole coconut (as they all digest as fats) is a better alternative to add to a bowl of grains/their sprouts than milk. Milk is best taken alone. See Pitchford’s book on the question about getting “complete proteins…balanced in amino acids” in the “Protein” chapter; a cited study within found that when energy needs (calories) are met with a single complex carbohydrate, protein requirements are also fulfilled. Also mentioned in the chapter is that virtually every unrefined food from the vegetable or animal kingdom has all 20 recognized essential amino acids, on the contrary to popular belief. In the same book, the order of foods to eat is also adressed. For the best digestibility, eat proteins at the beginning of the meal and eat starches at another meal, as proteins generally need 4 to 6 hours to digest.

          In the end, I think it’s best to follow the major guidelines of food combining, and for the precise questions with seemingly no answers, just test on yourself and make conclusions on your own. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, certain people will digest certain combinations better than others. The key is to observe if the combination creates putrid flatulence (a sign of fermentation in the intestines) and your level of energy after the meal.

          Annie | 04.02.2013
  5. Can you add fruit and plant protein together in a smoothie? For example can you add a fruit with raw cacao powder, chia seeds, or hemp protein powder?

    Jane | 02.05.2013 | Reply
  6. This site is awesome… so happy to come across it while searching for food combining rules.

    Tawny | 02.15.2013 | Reply
  7. Do some of the new sugars on the market such as coconut sugar, xylitol, agave inhibit starch digestion like refined sugar, or supposedly molasses.

    Dwayne | 04.03.2013 | Reply
  8. Is there any scientific study to back this up? Thanks!

    Pat Boyd | 05.03.2013 | Reply
  9. Hi enjoyed reading your article. I agree with the food combining rules. I started on the raw food diet , year back but did everything wrong. For example i had cashew milk with straberries raisns and oats, lovely taste but the whole day i was bloated and heavy. yeap wrong combinations.
    May i ask what order preferences would you suggest first: sweet fruits, followed by sub acid , and then later acid fruits?

    priya | 05.11.2013 | Reply
  10. I agree with all of you. Great site. But when you intend to throw yourself into details, you’re not sure anymore to where exactly you can count certain foods. And then you run out of your recipes :). So hurtful when you love to cook.

    Somewhere I read that green beans can be counted as vegetables, and therefore are good to combine with starches, and an exception to the rule: do not combine fats and fruits, is a combination of avocado and sub-acid fruits and so on. So there ARE exceptions, but WHERE to read about them? And the bigger question: WHERE CAN I FIND RECIPES (and not only the raw ones)? Because frankly, I’m getting out of ideas :(.

    Usualy we mix many different foods together, because of the flavor, right? I mean who doesn’t… So how about cooking with organic essential oils? I have taken a short class and I found it really really impressive. I mean, if you use let’s say grapefruit or lemon essential oil (only a drop per one-person-dish will last enough) with… OK let’s say with salmon, you actually add the taste, the essence, the subtile information of this lemon, but no acids, so basicly, this would not be wrong? I’m just thinking out loud :). Hoping that someone would say this is a solution then, to those who wish to keep an eye to what they are combining, but are again FURSTRATED when it comes in practice, specially those gurmanic, taste lovers, like I am :).

    And something that will really make me cry, but… then the tapioca or rice pudding (where you have maybe a spoon of coconut oil for flavoring, spoon of coconut powder and a sweetener (even mesquito?), made on coconut or oat or rice milk) is therefore quite a disasterous combo? If your answer is YES, what do you suggest for dessert? 🙂 I know, fruits (but my spleen gets quite painful if I eat raw fruits – I only eat them for breakfast)… but what about a helthy, great combo dessert? Is there a possibility to make a TRUE WELL COMBINED rice pudding? Is there any sweetener more proper? Or… something that pisses me off – I’m making this beautiful one-pot dish, with lots of vegetables, including green beans (homegrown), and then I add (in order to avoid potatoes) a spoon or two of tapioca grains (to make it just a little bit sticky), and among all of those healthy vegetables, I add buckwheat grains (not a lot), to get more nutritious (so I keep silent for a few hours, and don’t get the sugar attack emergency) + keep in mind that I made all of this on cold pressed coconut oil. This dish according to proper food combining is then WRONG? This starts to hurt, you know :).

    I started to eat like this because of chinese traditional medicine. I have changed my lifestyle, stopped worrying, stopped smoking, started to do yoga, but everytime I go back there, to get the cuppings on my back and the acupuncture over my body, the guy always says: Well your thyroid is fine now, but you have too much fire in your belly and your digestion still looks very slow and weak. But… but… how? I moove a lot, I do yoga positions for better digestion, I watch what I eat (OK sometimes break a rule, but am not sure anymore if this is the true causer of these ”problems”) and I go to toilet every morning. Maybe I just eat too much (at one time). But hey, my body doesn’t tell me that. I’m skinny as hell. And once he said I’m not supposed to eat fish (I don’t eat any other meats), because it digests so poorly, that it will stay in my digestion for weeks (although I have combined it with salad or steamed asparagus). AGAIN – BUT HOW?

    I just miss some good recipes that are very healthy, well combined, simple, fast, nutritious and can give me the smile on my face. But sometimes this is really hard. There are many different diets (I like this combining theory the most, because it’s very logical and believe in it), and even more of so good recipes,… but everytime I find ”a healthy recipe” (specially dessert – and I don’t eat desserts often) I find out that the combination is not good. I got so inspired by apple crumble gosh (organic apples, cinnamon, ginger, and crust made of soaked almonds without skin, spelt meal and just a little bit of spelt flour + coconut oil)… and after I get into these rules more carfully, I realise it was a disastorous combination (no wonder I had gas).

    So my question to all of you there, who are trying to take care for yourselves – WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST? LET US SHARE THE RECIPES, PLEASE. And I was very glad to see this article, specially because you have shown that not everything healthy stays healthy when you mix it together (like most of people think – this is also why a lot of vegans or vegetarians get gastro problems; they start to seek for different food, start to like it, experiment, but at the end mix too many different things that are not proper).

    Now I’m too long, nobody will want to read this :).

    Be well
    Ana

  11. Now, I am confused….again.

    susie | 07.21.2013 | Reply
  12. The Nutibullet Juicer is a new way of juicing. It pulverizes everything from fruits to nuts to small seeds, putting these different types of foods on a more level playing field – that is, pulverized. The body works less hard in digesting. And that preserves the body’s energy. And maybe this takes away some of the issues if not all, over food combining.

    DMFS | 08.22.2013 | Reply
  13. great post-how about combining proteins (fish, chicken) with an oil to sautee?

    kirsti | 09.12.2013 | Reply
  14. How do you know if a grain is a starch or protein. I notice on the nutrition label it shows that a grain can have both starch and protein.
    Brown Rice, Tapioca Starch, Potato Starch, Sorghum Flour, warqa, corn, blue corn…
    Can you mix an animal protein with a plant protein?
    What if I wanted to eat blue corn chips (made with quinoa and sunflower oil). This would be mixing protein with fat (oil) and this would be bad?

    happy | 10.05.2013 | Reply
  15. How come that nuts do not combine with fat? They are just made of protein and FAT. What you are saying does not make sense. What are we missing here ? Can you clarify?

    Lisya | 10.27.2013 | Reply
  16. The more I read on this subject the more confused I get. All the info out there is so contradictory. For example nuts are said to be some high and some low in protein, but according to nutrition facts the HIGHEST percentage is fat. So why aren’t they considered fats?! And why can’t we combine animal protein with animal protein if it’s all the same thing? You mean a salad with grilled chicken and cheese is wrong?

    irene | 11.01.2013 | Reply
  17. Can I eat rye bread (100% rye flour ) and peanut butter . ?

    Zulfah | 11.13.2013 | Reply
  18. Ana I so feel ya! Kimberly snyder has recipes and also explanes this! Maybe we can work on this together

    Jessica | 01.10.2014 | Reply
  19. Can I eat quinoa porridge with almond milk and a nut butter? (Eg.Cashew butter?) Or is it better in coconut or rice milk? And without nut butter? So sad that fruit cannot be eaten with it 🙁 Are there any kinds of fruit/dried fruit that go okay with quinoa porridge? If not, what are some good toppings?

    Penny | 01.14.2014 | Reply
  20. I am a little confused here. I know this is an older article so I am not sure it will get a response, but here I go. If you cannot mix fruit with vegetables or protein why can you mix it together in a smoothie? The fiber is still present and needs the proper enzymes to break it down, so why would a smoothie defy these rules? Also if you are drinking a rice protein shake would it be improper to mix it with almond milk?
    cheers,
    aminah

    Aminah Hasan | 03.10.2014 | Reply
  21. I learned that the time it takes for milk to digest is 5-7 hours… Can you eat a starch or protein or vegetable after one hour, or must it be digested completely, before you eat anything else? Thanks! 🙂

    sherley | 04.01.2014 | Reply
  22. I agree on all of these points but this is amazing clarification for the raw food diet. I never thought about pesto! Thanks so much for posting this article.

    I do have one question though, in my mind, it should be ok to eat chia seeds (chia gel) with fruit as they are all soluble fiber and all digest rather quickly? Am I correct? Or am I really wrong? LOL. I really need to know the answer because I keep having chia seed pudding with fruit for breakfast when I don’t have time to have my glowing green smoothie.

    Your advice is HUGELY appreciated!!

    🙂

    EmJ

    Emma Jade | 04.22.2014 | Reply
  23. I am thankful for this article I have been vegan for a few weeks now. I made some potato pancakes oven-baked and felt horrible after eating them. I did a combination of quinoa and the potato pancakes. I did not use flour of any kind. I mashed the potatoes and added in: onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, and herb seasonings. I coated my baking pan with olive oil. I later found that the potato pancakes are best eaten as a meal alone . . . Out of habit I had watermelon for dessert . . . As I mentioned earlier I felt horrible . . . Now I know to serve fruit first and to wait 20 minutes later before consuming any other meal . . . I must admit my bean patties with romaine lettuce fared as a better meal. I used the romaine lettuce as a bread bun and it was very filling. Food combining is important to any and everyone not just the vegan in maintaining optimal health . . . I try to explain this to my non-vegan friends and they are just not interested . . . Its not just essential its just perhaps a good thing to know.

    Patrice | 07.22.2014 | Reply
  24. This is totally crazy… the more I read the more confused I get, I don’t know how or what to eat anymore and always questioning if what I am eating is good combining or not… how are we to survive

    susana | 09.04.2014 | Reply
  25. I have food combined for many years. My sister suffered from psoriasis very badly due to stress. She looked like a burns victim. She food combined and gradually her skin cleared completely after six weeks. I suffered with Irritable bowel syndrome but later found I was badly allergic to yeast so I researched this diet. It works. When on the diet both of us lost weight, felt fantastic had clear skin and lots of energy. The best book to buy is Food Combining for Health, (Red Book) by Jean Joyce. This explains every principle. All other books are a version of this original one. Read the book then you will understand the principles of this diet. It has all the food groups in there. It is now how a food group is when it is in front of you, it is what happens to it in your system i.e. lemons are acidic but when in your system they turn change to alkaline. There is a lot of talk about how this diet doesn’t work, how the principles can’t be true! My sister would still be dabbing psoriasis cream on her skin now if we hadn’t found this. Sorry but doctors and nutritionists do not have all the answers!

  26. Curious, Chia: a seed, a grain, a starch, a protein? What about socked or sprouted. When & where does it fit on the chart. What is the best combinatiom and when. Thank you… HM

    Hungry Me | 02.26.2015 | Reply
  27. I got this from a website which is baffling me, but then makes good sense.

    This experience and its conclusion was that fats and proteins are an excellent combination. Since protein is digested largely in the stomach by acids, and since the pepsin only works in an acid medium, when pepsin and protein get into the small intestine, if fats are being digested there at the same time and they have liberated enough fatty acid to acidify the intestine and prolong the action of pepsin so that the digestion of the protein would be carried further. Fats, proteins, acids, they all go together and help each other. Associate in your mind: fats with proteins with acids.

  28. Is it okay to mix cacao, vanilla drops, fresh vanilla, or cinamon with fruit? Please answer! Thank you in advance

    FoodLover | 09.29.2015 | Reply
  29. Hi, Thanks for this helpful information !
    I just have question about food combining , If it’s not good to combine animal Protein with starches ( like almond butter and oats for example ) , is it fine to mix oats with peanuts ? because I heard that peanuts are legume NOT nuts ?!! if it legume , so is it fine to mix it with carbs and starches or not ?

    Waiting your reply
    Thaak you in advance

    sara | 01.01.2016 | Reply
  30. Hi I have a question that I have searched so many time but can never seem to find an answer.. What category does Cao Cao fall in? For example I was wondering if can put Cao Cao powder in my banana and date smoothie. And if not what can I combine caocao powder with .. Can I put it in my home made hemp milk or no?

    Sara | 01.15.2016 | Reply
  31. Hi I have a question that I have researched so many times but can never seem to find a proper answer… What category does raw Cao Cao fall in.. For example I was wondering if I could add raw caocao powder in my banana and date smoothie.. If that does not go well what does caocao go with? Can I add caocao powder to my home made hemp milk or no? Please reply I am so confused

    Sara | 01.15.2016 | Reply
  32. WOW just what I was searching for. Came here by searching for food combining

  33. I still can’t find an answer to my question, I love Yerba Mate and can’t find when I can drink it as I put almond or coconut milk in it???? Can I have it for a snack?

    caroline olsen | 03.04.2016 | Reply
  34. Hi,
    I research a lot about Food and Nutrition. One thing I am more confused and worried at the same time are Starch/Carbs + Protein Combination. If U see most diets and healthy eating principles say that out meal shud be a combination of 50% Carbs + 25% Proteins +15% fats +10 %Minerals+Vitamins +Water etc. If Protein does not digest properly when eaten with carbs then why all the Bodybuilders in the world eat Chicken + Rice or Beef+ Pasta or Oatmeal+Eggwhites or Rice+pork etc etc and still feel fit and build a great physic without any digestive problems.If I am not wrong almost 90% people in the world who have some knowlegde abt Food and Nutrtion wud be following the 50% Carbs + 25% Proteins +15% fats +10 %Minerals+Vitamins +Water etc. Idealogy. I am really concerned about this as Proteins + Carbs are a daily diet everyone on the planet follows except some people who know proper food combining rules.
    Really waiting for ur early reply 🙂

    Adarsh Shetty | 03.11.2016 | Reply
  35. One more query…If We are combining Protein + Carbs/Starch, then can we include green veggies for optimal digestion so that we prevent the Alkaline and Acidic environment for digestion counteracting each other.

    Adarsh Shetty | 03.11.2016 | Reply
  36. Has any one lost weight on this plan and what numbers should I expect

  37. It is not wrong, the article is simply saying combining foods like this is the best for digestion. Do not complicate things. If you want your chicken carcass with pig carcass, by all means, no one can stop you. If you want to optimize digestion, eating a holistic plant-based diet is ideal for digestion, health, and overall well-being. Eat raw when you can, and just focus on how you feel. Try this method of eating for a week or so, and see how your energy levels can feel muddled if or when you consume a meal that isn’t optimally combined, or contains meat, which takes more energy to process and is less micro-nutrient dense than plant foods.
    Cheers.

    Christina | 05.08.2016 | Reply
  38. I really enjoyed reading your post. Thank you for taking the time to explain your experience!

  39. Can I combine Plant protein and Meat protein
    eg. Blackbeans, Garbanzos, Flax, and then Chicken/Tuna

    Damulos | 02.06.2017 | Reply
  40. Thanks. Very informative! I always ate my avocados with nuts in my salads because I use the avocado as a salad dressing, so I guess I won’t do that anymore. I will stick to either nut and tomato pesto or guacamole dressing. My stomach always felt irritated when I ate my nuts and oils together, and now I know why!

  41. Leslie Kenton’s The Biogenic Diet is the best book on conscientious food combining I have read. I am a Vegan with various health issues I was born with. The Biogenic way of combining my foods has really helped me. I’d like to start a blog to help people on a similar journey. I will answer any questions if I can. I am not a dietitian and I only have my own experiences and life long knowledge of hospitals and my own dietians to compare with. Good luck all.

    Annie | 04.05.2017 | Reply
  42. Where is the evidence to back any of this up? Stomach acid is always acidic never alkaline.

    Jacob | 04.19.2017 | Reply
  43. I have a question if anyone knows the answer. Is it okay to mix hemp seeds, fresh herbs (from the garden), Linseeds, almondss, walnuts, chia seeds, organic spirulina green powder and organic kale green powder together in a smoothie and what liquid other than water is fine food combining wise to mix it with please? I’ve been doing this most morning adding pineapple and strawberries with organic unsweetened oat milk in my Nutri-ninja auto IQ now. Now that I know the fruit is no good mixed with it and the oat milk well I guess it is protein? What’s everyone’s thoughts please? Thank you very much in advance, Paula 🙂

    Paula Annesley | 04.24.2017 | Reply
  44. Are there any raw food books that have recipes with proper food combining ?

  45. may I combine raw rolled oats with fruit?

    Vivienne | 06.15.2017 | Reply
  46. THIS IS A MYTH.
    Search: Food Combining Myth and you will see scientifically backed reasons why..

    FoodCombiningIsFALSE | 08.31.2017 | Reply
  47. all this info is interesting to a newcomer but also can be confusing

    Colin J Ward | 12.11.2017 | Reply
  48. I am wondering about protein powder drinks. I know that for ex. apple juice should be consumed about 20 minutes before any other food is eaten. But is it ok for say hemp powder to be mixed into the apple juice? They say on the package that for maximum digestibility, it should be mixed with fruit juice or other liquid. Or for that matter, smoothies with many ingredients which would normally go against the rules; why are they recommended for good digestibility?

    Alan Jaffe | 12.18.2017 | Reply
  49. All these ideas seem plausible, but I don’t see any reference to actual research backing up the claims. No references= no credibility.

    Maurice | 01.09.2018 | Reply
  50. Hi, I have some questions.
    First…what’s peanut butter? Is it fat or it’s protein? Can I eat it with whole grain bread?
    Second…can I eat avocado with plant protein? With some chickpeas for example.
    Third…I have some biscuits with seeds. What are they? They are made with starch.
    And the last one…what’s humus? Is it fat or protein? Can I eat it with whole grain bread?

    Kris | 01.30.2019 | Reply
  51. It’s whole wheat bread.
    Sorry, my mistake.

    Kris | 01.30.2019 | Reply
  52. Can you have banana and peanut butter?

    Georgia | 06.04.2019 | Reply
  53. You talk a lot about food fermenting in your stomach but I am lead to believe the stomach is a very acidic environment that most bacteria cannot tolerate and hence makes fermentation or rotting impossible. Which is right?

    Paul | 05.05.2022 | Reply
  54. ITS TOO MICH. ALL OF IT.

    Jean | 01.03.2023 | Reply

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