Success With Food-Combining Diets

Food combining diets outline several simple rules regarding which foods should and should not be consumed together. Proponents of these diets, such as Dr. William Howard Hay, "fitness guru" Suzanne Somers and Asian-healing expert Daniel Reid, claim that proper food combining will lead to weight loss, greater vitality, improved immunity and increased longevity.

Digestion

Food combining diets are based on the theory that each type of food requires a different set of ideal digestive conditions, including different digestive enzymes, pH requirements and digestion time. When you load several different types of food onto your plate (such as a hamburger with cheese on a bun) you unnecessarily burden your digestive system. Energy the body could use elsewhere thus gets devoted to digestion instead. Even with this extra effort, food is poorly digested. This reduces the amount of nutrients your body can absorb from even the most wholesome foods, which further compromises your health and saps your energy. If you suffer from post-meal fatigue or digestive problems (gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea or heartburn), you may want to experiment with this diet.

Rules

Practitioners of food-combining diets do not count calories, carbs or fat grams--but they take great care to not include all of these types of foods at one meal. They do not eat protein and carbohydrates together. This means no bun with your hamburger and no toast with your eggs. Eating two different types of proteins is also forbidden: No sausage with those eggs either. Protein should not be combined with fat (butter, oil, mayonnaise), but you may eat fat with vegetables and starches. Neither dairy products nor fruit pair well with anything, so these should be consumed separately. For some food-combining diets you must also be careful with acidic foods (such as citrus and tomatoes). These should not be consumed with carbohydrates because acids may destroy ptyalin--the starch-digesting enzyme secreted in the mouth as you chew. Digestion of all food, even when eaten in proper combination, can also be affected by too much liquid in the stomach. You should drink between meals, not while eating.

What to Eat

To succeed on this diet you will most likely have to revise your most fundamental notions about what constitutes a balanced meal: the four food groups together on one plate. Non-starchy vegetables (which exclude potatoes, corn, peas, carrots and beets) go with everything. This gives you many options for stir fry, casseroles, soup, stew and salad (including pasta, rice and bean salads).

Try replacing hamburger or steak with a grilled Portobello mushroom served with French fries or mashed potatoes. Kebabs of lamb, beef, shrimp or tofu are still fine, served, perhaps, with a large salad. Instead of potatoes, serve sauted kohlrabi or mashed cauliflower with meat. Replace the potatoes in beef stew with turnips. To continue enjoying pasta, experiment with tomato- and dairy-free sauces such as peanut, curry or even just garlic and oil. If you learn the spice principles of various cultures, you can create a wide array of international bean and rice dishes. (Beans combine as a starch.) Chili (without beans) is also an option. With a little creativity, there are many delicious ways to stay on this diet--if, of course, you find that it does indeed deliver the abundance of energy and good health it promises, and if a return to poor combinations leaves you feeling lethargic and bloated.