Food combining
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Food combining is the term for an unproven nutritional approach that focuses less upon the quantity and kind of food consumed, and more upon the timing of their consumption. For example, advocates sometimes recommend that carbohydrates and citrus fruits should not be consumed at the same meal, claiming that the enzyme that digests carbohydrates (amylase) can only function in an alkaline environment. Similarly, when proteins are consumed, the stomach releases pepsin, which is its enzyme for digesting protein foods. Alkaline and pepsin neutralize each other when in the stomach together, thus rendering the digestive juices less effective in breaking down foods that have been miscombined.
Advocates of such food combining believe that the result of too many "miscombined" meals is a backlog of undigested food in the stomach. They believe that this can lead to chronic conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, acne, and many other ailments believed to originate with an unclean colon. Among the proponents of this idea are some raw foodists who adopt the food combining philosophy to combat the ailments associated with an unclean colon, among other reasons.
Many of the assumptions used to justify food combining are not supported by biological and medical science, and there is currently little evidence supporting real-world success for these theories. One randomized controlled trial has been reported in the peer-reviewed medical literature, which found no evidence that food-combining principles were effective in promoting weight loss.[1]
[edit] History
William Howard Hay introduced food combining to United States in 1911. His approach was based upon the ideas current at the time regarding the alkalinity required to digest the food in the stomach and the pH of food itself. Herbert M. Shelton also contributed a food classification based on the type of nutrients in products. Shelton categorized foods into three groups—protein products, carbohydrate products and "neutral" products—and recommended eating proteins and carbohydrates at separate meals.
[edit] References
- ^ Golay A, Allaz A, Ybarra J, Bianchi P, Saraiva S, Mensi N, Gomis R, de Tonnac N (2000). "Similar weight loss with low-energy food combining or balanced diets". Int. J. Obes. Relat. Metab. Disord. 24 (4): 492-6. doi:. PMID 10805507.
- Shelton, Herbert M. Food Combining Made Easy. Willow Pub. ISBN 0-9606948-0-3 (June 1940).
- Rose, Natalia. The Raw Food Detox Diet. HarperCollins Pub. ISBN 0-06-079991-9 (2005).
