Recap of eight months on mostly raw food
Hi folks,
It has been a while, but I really felt like writing this. I am feeling really great, yesterday I beat my own personal record on a 10km running challenge in 47m:23s. Not that the time is so spectacular, but I started running again like only ten months ago, and my personal record was from more then eight years ago, when I was in good shape. So I am hitting the milestone where I am getting in better shape then when I was around my 18th year!
I can really recommend going on a high-fruit low-fat mostly raw food diet if you want to get back in shape, I have experienced great results and will never forget all the knowledge I learned about nutrition and health.
I did experience difficulties like cravings because of too little calorie intake and I went step-by-step to a 100% raw food diet with to much fat to my current mostly raw low-fat diet with occasional cooked grains and steamed vegetables. With great exception I also eat diary- and meat products during social events with family or friends, but the overall diet is pretty healthy and I am enjoying it.
One of the greatest benefits is a very clean feeling from the inside and outside, my skin has never been better after cutting out the diary products and my digestion is also very clean, combined with attention to the food combing rules, my digestion and faeces are almost orderless, and I don’t experience bad breath or bad flatulence.
I used to crave all kinds of unhealthy and fatty foods, but this is almost completely gone, my taste preferences changed and I now like sweet fruits a lot :D. I can eat loads (like in kilograms of food) of healthy food without gaining weight. I have to admit this took some time and training, I even went so far as calorie counting, something I was against and never did before, but it gave me a better understanding about what I was eating nutrition wise, and I can really recommend doing this for a while. Because of it, I started eating more fruit and less fat (80/10/10).
My energy levels increased on this diet and I started wanting to go outside to exercise more and more. My mental clarity has always been pretty good, but I noticed my motivation dips have become less. I guess it’s possible to call this a high performance diet style :)
Since eight months is still a short period I still think of it as experimental, and I am reading information from people that have been doing this for many years now so I can continue doing so, without doing damage to my long-term health.
I also had my second dental check-up and everything was perfect again. I was in-and-out the chair in less then 10 minutes, and 42 Euro’s lighter….
There are still things I am working on like my calcium intake, proteins for muscle building, recovery times, quality of sleep, getting through the winter…
But so far so good :)
How are you guys/girls doing?
Book review raw secrets and personal notes
So last week I received some raw books and DVD’s I ordered online. One of these books is The Raw Secrets by Frederic Patennaude.
So last Sunday I lay down on the couch and started reading and finished the book in one time cover to cover (213 pages). The book was very informative, practical, easy to read and well written. I highly recommend this book!
The book answered a lot of question I had after reading about food combining, natural hygiene (see this post and the brochure link on the end) and my raw food diet experiences.
I have been trying to follow a low fat, high fruit raw diet with about 80/10/10 (carbs/protein/fat). However after some examples in this book I calculated I have been eating way to much fatty products. I estimate I was getting about 25% of my calories from fat instead <10%. The book gives good examples, and explains the fat and protein contents of fruits and vegetables.
One of the major issues is that most raw dinner recipes replace the carbohydrates from grains with nuts and seeds, creating very fatty dishes that are not that healthy at all (maybe occasionally, but definitely not daily).
I always try eating vegetables for dinner and ended up adding them with nuts and seeds (too fatty) or alternative I made blended salads or vegetables juices. However I think I am now going to experiment with mixtures of leafy greens and fruits (for the calories) but without nuts, seeds or avocados (fruits and fats don’t combine). I am also going to allow myself to eat fruits after dinner, to get rid of graving for nuts and seeds in the evening.
The books describes bad habits and I wrote my own down for personal reflection:
- frozen food (page 99) (damages intestinal flora)
- raw cacao (toxic theobromine) (my precious cacao… interesting..)
- eating too many fatty foods (nuts, seeds and avoid oils)
- salt, pepper, spices (page 67) (capsaicin)
- overeating (probably, but I am unsure how to recognize overeating)
- lack of real sleep (cycles)
- household chemicals personal care products
- organic fruits (I buy mainly fresh products, but I can definitely use more fresh organic fruits)
- over-training (I most times train as if my life depends on it, but I am still getting rid of old toxics)
- lack of iron assimilation (page 72) (working on improving my intestinal tract and digestion)
The part about using condiments, spices, salt, etc., which hinder digestion and lead to overeating is really interesting. I am getting a lot of mixed signals from the healthy living movements about this, see this article for example for lots of benefits! However I think I am convinced about the negative effects of salt, even when using the Himalayan salt I have bought. (The book doesn’t condemn all herbs and spices)
I also bought a vitamin D supplement, just to be sure (living in the Netherlands and all). This makes my second supplement together with B12.
I am also relaxed about mixing steamed vegetables with my dinners, especially if this will increase my vegetables intake. The books gives some great practical information about this.
I am going to gradually work my bad habits for a more healthier diet without cacao, salt and species…wish me luck :)
Well that’s it, the book contains too much good info, it will definitely give you some practical guidelines. So I highly recommend reading this book when following a raw/natural diet.
My next book is the Raw Food Controversies from the same author and I will probably write something about it afterwards.
Food recap update and juicing with a vita-mix
Hi fellows, I had a really great week and made some big learning steps in my healthy living learning process. I will post more about them in my next post where I will be reviewing a great new book I bought.
I am experiencing some cravings for fatty foods (nuts and seeds) especially in the evenings, but I am working on this, by eating some fruits after dinner and after 18:00, I am trying to find a balance there. My cravings for bread have gone away! Yeah!
I’ve been doing experiments with a nut-bag for draining and blending vegetables with my vita-mix, and I am loving it :) I’m now taking in a lot vegetables that I would otherwise not eat that often and not in these quantities (like raw beet roots, raw cabbage, raw zucchini)
New goodies and some dehydrated nuts and crackers, I really love the spices on those nuts, but they probably aren’t that healthy…
My attempt at broccoli soup, but it tasted horrible ;( I had to add a lot of vegetable broth to make it more tasteful… I am not going to make this again anytime soon!
The result, looks a bit weird, but I don’t judge foods anymore on appearance, since blended vegetables or vegetable stews also don’t look appealing but are very healthy and can be delicious too.
Post-workout smoothie with sunwariour protein chocolate powder, with water and four dates blended, tasted pretty good.
Nom Nom Nom melon, just scoop it with a spoon ;)
Banana, blueberry with a few cherries smoothie, my returning favourite.
Wednesday refill :)
Big salad with nuts and seeds.
Frozen bananas with walnuts, carob, cacao and vanilla raw agave syrup. Mixed in the magimix until smooth. Makes a very delicious meal. Had this for lunch :) Sadly frozen/cold foods should be taken very moderate, due to digestion issues and intestinal flora damages.
I mixed some of the sauce through the mixture to make a chocolate ice cream look.
It’s going to be salad week ;) this time with the dehydrated and spiced nuts I bought.
My weekly apple sauce with nothing else then blended apples.
Look an other salad O_o
And a variation of my chocolate ice cream this time with a cup frozen and a cup of fresh strawberries, without any carob nibs.
Loving the magimix :)
And the delicious result.
And an other big salad with some steamed zucchini. I really like zucchini steamed. Some steamed vegetables can be a very good completion to a mostly raw diet!
Starting to experiment with making juices with my vita-mix blender and a nut bag for straining, so we see the pulp on the left and the juice on the right. It is amazing how much vegetables you can juice and the taste is very different when juiced. It seems almost sweet to me. I added a bit of lemon juice in this batch.
Pears to be blended and strained.
Very good! I see it oxidized very soon or it may be the seeds that where also blended.
One of my favourite Mexican mix meals :)
So good!
My precious mango’s!
About one litre of vegetable juice, with only one beet root, turning it all red!
Fruit refill :) See those small mango’s on the right, They are the best mango’s I ever tasted!
And a picture of the refrigerator, more home-grown vegetables where incoming from our garden.
Making my own invented salad dressing, with avocado, mustard, one tp agave nectar and water. (the salt and black pepper should be avoided next time)
It was a very good first attempt, next time a little bit less water.
About one litre of fresh orange juice with lots of pulp. I love this stuff, but oranges are acid-fruits and I try to eat them only two times a week.
Vegetable juice, lots of spinach so very green :)
One tb of walnut butter and sunwarior chocolate flavoured protein powder as post-workout smoothie. (this was on a Thursday evening)
About eight large apples blended with some cinnamon agave syrup as post-workout lunch after doing a nice sunny 16km Saturday morning run. Training went pretty good considering a small annoying right hip injury. Next duration training I will try to get up to the 18km or 20km, so almost half a marathon (we are getting there)!
And again a salad :)
Freaking amount of vegetable juice with one beetroot (no its not animal blood). Is one litre of vegetable juice to much as a meal? Is that overeating?
And finally my salad dinner of this evening with some steamed, just freshly picked organic zucchini.
I am only eating vegetables as dinner in the evening, so fill in the missing pictures with lots of fresh delicious fruits for breakfasts and lunches :D Furthermore no missteps this week.
Have a good one folks :)
Tribest freshlife automatic sprouter (updated)
Well I bought a sprouter to make some of my own wheat-grass and other sprouts :D. I guess it’s just something I want to try out and the timing was perfect, this post from thefruitpursuit.com inspired me to take the final step.
I bought the freshlife sprouter at unlimitedhealth.nl and my wheat grass seeds from tarwegraskoning.nl
However I am not going to recommend this sprouter, I had a hard time deciding if I should return the sprouter back to the shop. It makes a lot of noise and turns on about four times a hour for three minutes. The water has to be cleaned every two days, and this is a lot of work. You have to take the top from the water base unit and everything will get wet… Kind of beats the purpose of an automatic sprouter… really wtf!
The manual is not clearly written and there are no instruction how to use the wheat grass pads or how to sprout wheat grass. I mailed the manufacturer two times with questions but not a single response…
Thankfully there are short movies on the internet of end-users(thank you all!). The freshlife sprouter seems to be a pretty old design and I have no idea why my sprinkler is only two way instead of four, I would have expected the design to improve (especially noise reduction, water filters, some sort of timer). The price is also very high and on the manufacturer website there are charges for almost everything even for a digital versions of the manual… So the freshlife automatic sprouter is definitely NOT recommended to buy.
I will use my vita-mix with a nut bag to process and strain the wheat grass. I will update this post when the growing of my first batch is finished. Very exciting!!
I am also concerned about fungus and bacteria! It was recommended to add food grade hydrogen peroxide to the water but where can I buy that in Europa?
I’ve also been looking at juicers (Hurom based design) and a dehydrator. I am not a big fan of juicing since I kind of think the separation of the pulp is a processed form of the whole food ingredients, but a juicer makes it possible to consume amazing amounts of vegetables in a short time and it can be very handy for foods that are timely to prepare due to seeds, shells or lots of cleaning, like strawberries, kiwi’s and almond nut milk.
What are your own experiences with sprouters (fungus and bacteria) and juicers?
Update:
It’s been eight days since I put the wheatgrass seeds in the sprouter and I have been refreshing the water every two days as instructed.
So today I went harvesting the grass. I found some white mold on the bottom that was totally covert with roots, it was really disgusting and smelly. I cut the grass a few centimetres above the roots tried washing it thoroughly with water.
I can tell you cleaning out all the roots is really nasty work…I guess I spent almost a hour cleaning out all parts and the wheatgrass. There is some slimy residue on all parts that is just nasty.
I put all the wheatgrass in the vita-mix added half a cup of water and started blending. I can tell you wheatgrass doesn’t blend :) It will not breakdown.
I drained the mixture with a nut bag and had about half a litre of green juice that smelled like grass…
I pinched my nose and drank the whole thing it was really disgusting. It has been 45 minutes ago and I am still alive :) I do feel a slight feeling of vomiting which seldom happens to me and an occasional burp that brings back the nasty flavour.
Some people say this are the bad bacteria in my digestive tract being upset, but I don’t know, maybe wheatgrass is just not for me yet.
Food recap and some missteps
It’s been almost two weeks again since my last post, and there were some days my healthy raw diet wasn’t that raw or healthy at all… I did have very good workouts and last Saturday I had a 12km four time three phase hill run (high heartbeat) where I went to my physical max. and took out every bit of energy I had. It felt very great. Until later that day when I was unable to refill my energy supply with fruits and I (my body) decided to take an early nap to preserve itself and woke up the next day :)
I been trying to only eat when I feel hungry since this is much better for, well everything in our body, but I’m still having trouble to feel de difference between hunger and appetite, and I just take the food I have lying around :) So my best self defence against unhealthy foods are to not have them lying around. Therefore am also trying to clean/eat my non-raw food supplies that are stocked in all the kitchen cabinets, it seems to take forever!
So I will post a bunch of pictures again of some of the food I’ve been taking I experimented with the raw recipe book I’ve also been using in the last two posts.
My weekly Wednesday fruit resupply, those days will automatic become the best day in the week, don’t you just love buying fruit from a market stand totally packed with all the delicious fruits you can eat!
I am trying a recipie with beetroot with apple. It required some ingredients called applediksap some sort of concentrated apple juice that I don’t have. I did have apple cider vinegar, what a strong smell that stuff has…
Using the magimix slider and the vita-mix for the dressing.
Healthy and raw, the apple cider has a strong flavor that you may need to get used to..
Love a good melon :)
I had a bag with peanuts lying around and wanted to try-out the vita-mix! Peanuts are beans and not nuts! and are considered to be not that healthy, so try to avoid them. I still have two jars of Calve peanut butter, and I used to consider them as one of my favourite foods… The vita-mix did a perfect job!
Apricots,red plums and a nectarine.
Fresh oranges. I wonder why I didn’t take a picture of the resulting smoothie :)
Spinach mousse made with the magimix. It tasted quite good with lemon, sundried tomatoes, walnuts and edelgistvlokken (Dutch) don’t know the English translation :)
Ingredients for the Thai salad with miso dressing.
The dressing also needed 1/2 cups of mirin and I didn’t have that… I also didn’t come up with some alternative? But the dressing ended up way to strong and thick..
The salad with sesame seeds on top.
Fresh pineapple.
More red plums.
Two apricots, two nectarines and two peaches.
And a lovely melon.
Wednesday fruit resupply :)
This time also a picture of the vegetables! Our family allotment garden is running out of vegetables.. So I needed to buy some. Not all of the vegetables are form the market, some are still organic from the family garden.
Making fresh apple mousse with some bananas.
The best!
I am making the fennel soup again as I also did the last few weeks. I just like playing with the vita-mix.
It’s pretty good and very filling.
Fresh mandarins.
I just love good mango’s. Yari my cat did not like :D
Blending fresh oranges again, I don’t set the speed higher then position five so there is pulp and little oxidation.
It takes amazingly little time to drink that much oranges :)
A new attempt at using some nori sheets.
Sadly I haven’t found there sweet spot yet. I seems I still don’t like nori sheets.
I switched to white cabbage with non-raw Heinz sandwich spread as dressing…. I still had to eat something, since I had a interval running training 30 minutes later… I really wonder if our digestive system is supposed to handle raw cabbage? I had gasses for the whole next day…
The pictures isn’t that good, the cabbage leave and the tauge bean sprouts weren’t that dark.
Post workout protein smoothie:
1x tablespoon of almond flour or meal (or handful of 12H soaked almonds)
1x tablespoon of almond butter
1x cup of water (filtered when desired)
1x scoop of Sun Warrior vanilla raw rice protein
10 drops of stevia fluid (after own taste)
The key here is food combining and timing, no fruits and no starch with protein. The smoothie is best taken as the last meal before sleeping (about one hour before) and as post workout smoothie. It will digest in about +4 hours during sleep and help refill the amino acid pool.
The best fresh cherries there are.
And a strawberry banana smoothie with some added natural sweetener.
Just the best.
Cooked meal as one of my missteps this week. I had a cauliflower lying around and didn’t want to eat it raw, I also had some other pre-packed mixes lying and replaced the needed chicken with the cauliflower and made some curry cauliflower dish with rice. I have a sweet spot for curry…
Food recap of two weeks
Since this a rather large recap I am leaving out the days when the food was prepared, to save myself some time :D I have been experimenting with some raw dishes, and some of them where good but some of them didn’t taste so well, so I have added a raking to them ;-). The experiments are from a nice Dutch raw food recipe book I bought.
Blended some apples with only 1/4 cup of water to get the blending started.
Love the tamper and power of the vita-mix.
Some cinnamon and you got a delicious apple treat.
Yellow and green kiwi’s as breakfast.
One of my favourite fruits, mango’s!!
Resupplying my fruit stock with fruits from the local market.
One of my favourite smoothies, a banana with blueberries smoothie.
The ingredients for my fettucini alfredo experiment, needed something to use my organic zucchini.
The resulting fettucini alfredo, the first few bites where all right, but I soon had enough of it….
I will not make this again, rating it solid 5! Thankfully our family dog that was staying over did like it!
I am not completely sure what kind of melon this was, i think it was a Hami melon? Does somebody know?
Lovely nectarines! Yum!
My experiment to make fennel soup! Lots of fun to make, by using the vita-mix to heat the soup!
The first part blending the base ingredients. That needed to be filtered with a nut-bag.
The resulting creamy damping soup
Added the final pieces of vegetables and the result was quite good and very very filling! I am rating it a 7. It was also very healthy. But the food combining wasn’t that great, it noticed during exercising later that evening that it was quite heavy on the stomach.
Fresh applesauce
And a bannana blueberry smoothie again with a few cherries.
The resulting smoothie!
I just love mono meals of fruit :)
The ingredients of my raw cauliflower curry experiment!
Trying out the new magimix :)
So the original recipe wanted my to place the dish for a hour in a dehydrator… but I don’t have one of those yet. I thought I just steam the cauliflower for five minutes before using it. However It seems I really don’t like raw cauliflower…. :( and I ended up placing the dish in the oven at 150 degrees… bye bye enzymes ;(
However the resuling this did still taste to much after raw cauliflower. I did eat the dish (the dog also had a few…). I am rating it a 5,5. Maybe somebody knows how to eat raw cauliflower….? I am not making this again for the time being :)
Whole oranges, since the vita-mix will take care of the seeds. I have read that the seeds of oranges contain about the same amount of minerals as the juice!
I like the fruit meat so I blend on a low speed :)
Kiwi’s as breakfast :D
A fresh whole pineapple, I experimented blending it with the hard part of the pineapple.
However it seems I don’t like blended pineapple, maybe to much oxidation of the high speed blending.
Ingreditens for my savory vegetable stew, that I like to take before exercising. I will digest perfectly.
Doesn’t look like much, but It gives loads of energy and fills perfectly.
Mono meal with mandarin!
And an other fruit resupply, The green stuff are sea vegetables grown in our own country, you can eat them raw! But it tasted a bit salty, It may be a healthy source for sodium since the plant did the absorption.
We got red plums!
Frozen bananas with fresh strawberries, made into an icy smoothie.
Post workout protein smoothie with sunwarrior chocolate protein.
Fresh strawberries, couldn’t resist them :)
Ingredients for my second attempt of fennel soup!
The reaming ingredients after straining the first with a nut-bag.
Delicious warm fennel soup! I am raking it a solid 8! Very fun to make and eat.
Ingredients for my mexican mix experiment!
The hot sauce made with the magimix.
Everything mixed! This tasted very well and with all the colours it also looked nice. I am rating it a 8,5, definitely going to recreate this dish.
I forgot to make the first picture of all the ingredients, but I am experimenting making a raw spinach pie! The picture is the magimix result for the crust.
The remaining ingredients.
Topping of raw rawmesan.
The magimix result of the spinach filling.
Filling everything up!
And the final topping. Had to rest the dish for one hour in the refrigerator.
Look great, tasted some what different. The bottom was almost made completely of cashew nuts so very fat and filling. The filling had a bit to much lemon juice. But in a span of three days the complete thing was gone. It seems It tasted way better when I was hungry :D since then I could eat a good part of it, but as soon as I was somewhat filled, the taste wasn’t that great any more. Maybe something special…..I don’t know yet. I may recreate this dish with less lemon juice and other nuts… I currently rank the dish a 6.
So that was my recap, lots of pictures :D Hope you liked it and maybe inspired you to-do your own experimenting.
New Magimix 3200XL food processor
its been almost two since I posted something! So I have been saving a lot of food pictures for this and the next post! :D
I bought a nice Dutch raw food recipe book but most of the recipes needed a good food processor. So I did some searching and Magimix was highly recommended so I bought one :) I have been very pleased with it as you may see in the bellow pictures.
I was told the Magimix is easy to clean, this may be so… I have not used so many food processors before. But the Magimix contains three containers and I seem to end up cleaning at leased two of them every time, even when I have used only one container.. The food spills a bit during the mixing… It is definite more work to clean compared with my vita-mix blender.
I also mixed some yellow spices and now the white parts already look yellowish and giving it a old and long-used look :) The Magimix now stands beside the vita-mix blender and I use it every week.
What food processor do you use, and why did you buy that one?
Weekly food recap
Sunday evening
These babies are red currant also known as aalbessen in Dutch. They are quite common this time of year and are locally grown and organic. I used to really hate them because they have a lot of small seeds that get stuck between your teeth. However the vita-mix will pulverise almost all seeds and when adding a few hands of frozen strawberries it made a nice fresh smoothie.
The resulting red currant strawberry smoothie
Monday
Late breakfast waited until I got hungry, as you see all whole fruits, no blending and no green smoothie.
OK, this one is kind of special, it is a vegetable stew, I make these when I am in a hurry and about to exercise, these little monsters consist of all vegetables and small bit of agave syrup, honey, maple syrup or other natural sweetener. The food combining is perfect and allows me to eat this 800g vegetable stew and go out running only 10 minutes later and have enough energy for a few hours with high intensity training without any stomach issues. The vita-mix with its tamper is perfect for making this stew, and I dare you to find an other way to get so much vegetables into one meal and make it tasty enough to repeat it weekly!
Tuesday
Some water, two bananas hand of frozen blueberries and a few frozen cherries, I have a few of these smoothies every week.
Got some ripe kiwi’s for lunch.
And some melons a few hours later.
This was a post workout recovery drink with soaked almonds and sun warrior chocolate protein, I am still searching for a tasty good combined protein drink….
Wednesday
Blended some apples with a topping of cinnamon.
Experimented some more by trying to create carrot-zucchini-pancakes based on the recipe of sueintraining. I replaced the egg with tofu but maybe this was not such a good idea… I got a lot of zucchini (courgette) so I am trying to find as much interesting recipes :)
The resulting mixture that went into the frying pan with some sesame oil, I also tried them with coconut oil.
The resulting pancakes, they look pretty good, but I found them tasting a bit to much after the flour.
Thursday
Breakfast and later the mango for lunch.
The ingredients for my vegetable stew minus the agave syrup I also used.
And an other fast vegetable stew before heading of for a group running session. It was really pouring rain, so we where completely soaked but it was a wonderful training.
The ingredients for my post workout recovery drink. I am trying to find some vegetable/protein combo that taste good. This was definitely not it :D
The resulting tomato sun warrior vanilla protein drink. (not so tasteful..)
Friday
A bunch of tangerines as breakfast.
Lunch a zucchini, cucumber, tomatoes, curly lettuce and peanut butter spread roll. It was correct food combining and no bread, and it tasted pretty good.
Same thing from a different angle.
I made an other variation for dinner only with a raw nori sheet and with some non raw/organic Heinz sandwich spread natural.
Received my stock resupply with some special hard to get ingredients!
Saturday
Went for a morning run and came back around lunch time.
Wanted to tryout some of my new ingredients like the white miso, Brazil nuts (paranoten), almond butter and some sun dried tomatoes.
The raw nori sheet with nut spread, courgette, bean sprouts(taugé), carrots and cucumber.
The resulting nori sheets!
So this is my first weekly recap, I hope you liked it! How did your week go food wise?
Cheerio,
Jelle
Introduction to food combining
So you may be familiar with raw food with lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and not heating food above 48 degrees Celsius to keep the food bioactive alive with enzymes. (at 118 Fahrenheit enzymes begin to be destroyed)
But there seems to be an other important part. You may have heard of the quote “You are what you eat” but it should really say “You are what you ingest!”
So this post is about food combining and is based on books, brochures, my own experience and information I found on the internet. I have not found scientific articles about the long term benefits of correct food combining and there has been no scientific proof that correct food combining will make you lose weight. (that I can find!)
However my own experiences with food combining are very good and reading about it gave me lot of information that is both in-line with theoretical and practical research, so I dare to say that the principles of food combining are solid! Just give them a try, buy some books, read information and it will help you become a more healthier happier person. But try to keep seeing food as something fun, delicious and with social aspects and not only as a list of nutrition facts.
Since there is way to much to write about how the human body processes food in a single post, I will give you pointers to other sources and hopefully trigger you to read further information (check all links). I have been amassed that the the information I found have never been taught to me. I have never felt having any stomach or ingestion issues and thought to be pretty normal and healthy. I kind of stumbled on a good information source (Dutch written brochure) about food combining and natural hygiene (that also explained almost all raw food principles). I am still amazed there is almost no information on Wikipedia about these subjects!
Here are some of my own experiences with food combining that made me conclude that it does work!
When I go out to exercise a few times per week I will be in a hurry, It will be in the beginning of the evening, just finished working, have a hungry feeling and I want to have dinner. So for the average western dinner will have contained something like cooked potatoes, vegetables and some fish or meat (or replacements). This meal would have forced me to rest for at least 45 minutes, gave me a heavy full stomach feeling and I thought this was pretty normal!
However If you combine food correctly you will be able to almost exercise intimidate and the food will be ingested without slowing you down. For example I can now eat a more then 800gram raw vegetable stew (without additional water) and start my exercise and have energy throughout the complete intensity exercise. I can tell you that this is a wonderful experience!
One of the best indicators of correct food combining will be your final act of digestion also know as defecation. If you body has digested what you eat correctly your stool will be small, odourless, and compact! You will not have had any excessive flatulence.
So how do the basics work!
There are different food groups and they contain macronutrients that need different process to digest! If you mix food groups that need different circumstances some part of your food will not digested and other parts will be digested less efficiently and the process can take a lot of your energy. Mixing will be in the form of eating food at the same time or eating food before your stomach has finished processing your previous meal. Be aware that drinking is also food. Dr. Herbert M. Shelton one of the food combining pioneers suggests that more then 25% will just pass trough your digestive system polluting, fermentation and toxicating your body when you combine your food badly. (this inefficient food ingestion with fermentation is what will make your stool smell bad)
The three primary macronutrients are Starch, Protein and Fat.
If you eat starchy food the digestion starts in your mouth where you must chew your food (there is no other place where food will be made in smaller chucks!!), Your saliva will release amylase containing ptyalin. You mouth will only do this if it detects starchy food! If your food is mixed with fluids or something sweet the amylase is not released and the starch will not be digested properly.
When you swallow your food it goes to your stomach where the pH will be different depending on what your want to digest. To digest starch your stomach fluids will have an alkaline pH optimum.
To digest proteins your stomach will release the enzyme Pepsin that will need an gastric acidic pH optimum.
So eating both starchy food together with proteins, will be a bad combination and will be hard to digest. Beans contain both starch and proteins and will be hard to digest, but also a slice of bread with cheese or potatoes with meat. Your body will need to work hard to get some energy out of the meal because your stomach fluids will be in a non optimal state for ether processing starch or the proteins.
Proteins are useless for the body in the state they are consumed. They have to be processed to amino acids chains and even then they need to be processed to amino acids the body can actually use. The stomach only does the first step for proteins, the pancreas releases other enzymes and fluids so the peptides can be further broken down to amino acids in the small and large intestine.
To digest fats or oils your stomach will need an acid environment and it will delay digestion for a few hours. So either combining them with protein or starch ain’t a good combination. This made me wonder a lot about the natural combination in some nuts because they contain both fat and proteins in high amounts.
Click here for a printable version of an other food combining chart
So that are the basics of food combining and natural hygiene, just search the internet and you will find a lot more information (less then I expected thought!) The pioneers are William Howard Hay (1866-1940) and Dr. Herbert M. Shelton (1895-1985)
With our education and social behaviour it seems very hard to live a life with correct food combining. I personally try to combine food correct on the days I am going to exercise. Keep the food combining principles as baseline when eating at home and when I eat somewhere else I just enjoy my food as it comes! I am also amassed that with all our medical advances there is so little real education on what correct food can do to the human body. Prevention is better than cure.
If you can read Dutch, buy the Groene dag brochure – juist combineren brochure it will provide a lot of good information. If only half their archive is that useful I will start reading all of their articles.
I spent a fair amount of time writing this post and reading informations about the subject. I hope you all like this post and please share what you think about it! and of-course what your experiences are! I hope to write some more practical information about this subject in the near future.
Update: I found a related interesting article: Sequential eating and food combining
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