Fruits should not be mixed with cooked food!
How true is this?
In our series "Nutrition Myths Busted" we bust common nutrition myths & replace it with evidence based nutrition!
🍜 Food combining is a theory that advocates against eating certain foods together in the same meal. It was popularised in the mid-1800s and then revived again in the 1900s
The two premises of the theory are:
🧆 Different foods are digested at different speeds and therefore combining a fast-digesting food with slow-digesting one causes negative health consequences.
🧫 Different foods require different enzymes to be broken down and these enzymes work at different pH levels and therefore the body can't properly digest different kinds of food together effectively.
Is this true? 🤔
📊 As of now there is one only study that has examined this theory. It showed no benefit from following these principles.
🍲 While some foods get digested faster than others, eating them in the same meal does not cause adverse effects. We recommend that you eat food in the order in which it gets digested. Begin every meal with fruits, followed by vegetables dishes, followed by cereal and lentils for best nutrition absorption.
⚖️ Eating food that are more acidic or alkaline does not significantly change the pH of our digestive tract. Our bodies are designed to keep the pH of all parts of our digestive tract in their correct range.
In addition, there are several benefits to eating Fruits at the beginning of every meal! 🍌
🍲 Every time we eat food, the body goes into what's called a 'pro-oxidant state' for the next few hours. Metabolising glucose at the cellular levels causes the formation of free radicals, which damage our body from the inside out, causing chronic lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, high BP, heart disease, and cancer.
🍋 The body has a natural mechanism to counter this free radical production, using antioxidants. Therefore, if we eat foods that are rich in antioxidants while containing calories in the form of carbohydrates, fat and protein as well, we get the best of both world - a boost in energy and a boost in health too!
🍈 Consuming fruits along with cooked food during meals has been found to boost our antioxidant capacity during the postprandial state, in the hours following our meal. When we eat fruits with food, instead of the body suffering for hours afterwards, we get an amazing boost in health for many hours!
Unique Benefits of Fruits:
🍇 Fruits have their own amazing profile of phytonutrients and beneficial effects on our health, which we cannot get from vegetables.
🍓 The China Kadoorie Biobank Study found that the more fresh fruit you ate, the less likely you are to die from a host of individual diseases - ischemic heart disease, stroke, other cardiovascular diseases; cancers of the esophagus, stomach, and colorectum among so many more.
🥭 Indians were found to have just half the risk of depression and significant improvement in anxiety if they ate 2 servings of fruits or more per day.
🍊 Fruits accelerate healing, so when we are feeling unwell or just want to give our system a break. Fruits are the way to go
🍍 Fruits are great for Diabetics. Yes, you read right. The Harvard Health Letter on fruits and fructose, “Fruits are not harmful and are even beneficial in almost any amount. Fruits contain lots of fiber. The fructose is bound to the fiber, which slows its absorption.
So, don't forget to start your meal with some fresh fruit today!
Be Blessed by the Divine!
Dr. Achyuthan Eswar.
Lifestyle Physician.
