Language is telling about the link between your brains and your intestines: you give a “gut response” when you follow your intuition, you have “butterflies in your stomach” when in love, when you have “fire in your belly” you are ready to fight. The list of expressions is long, and this is a universal phenomenon, these expressions are present in many languages.
What common sense has known for centuries is increasingly demonstrated by scientific research. A well-maintained microbiome, having a wealth of bacterial bugs in your belly, is clearly positive for your body’s immunity. Reversely, an unhealthy gut is known to be the source of many physical and mental diseases. This list is very long, from benign or mild (skin rash, burping and farting, acid reflux, stress…) to serious and even life-threatening issues (Crohn’s, various cancers, Alzheimer’s…).
The short of it is: want to leave a healthy, preferably long, life? Take care of your gut!
Have Chronic Pains? Pay Attention!
Here’s something you might want to try. It’s called food combinations. I have tried this for a few weeks, and I see results already: I’ve lost a few pounds, my belly is flatter, I sleep better, my feces look better…
The theory behind food combinations is very simple. Macronutrients (carbs, proteins, fats) are digested differently. Your body produces different enzymes for each sort of foods. Starches are digested by the enzyme amylase, among others. Amylase is present in your saliva. Fat is broken down by the enzyme lipase, made in the pancreas. Lactase breaks down dairy products. Proteases help digest proteins, like meat products and are produced in the stomach and pancreas…
Hopefully you get the picture: digestion is a complex process. The production of enzymes calls upon various organs: glands in your mouth, pancreas, liver, intestines. For each sorts of food various organs are used differently.
For more information, consult this article or this one.
Food Combinations
For the body to process food efficiently and effectively we need to combine macronutrients wisely. This helps your body use a minimum amount of energy and absorb nutrients optimally. If you combine foods poorly, you exhaust your digestive organs AND miss nutritional benefits.
The bad news is that combining food healthily requires a radical new approach to preparing meals. There are a few good combinations and unfortunately, many bad ones. See below the illustration.
I am not making this theory up. It has been documented by Jan Dries, among other people, in various books. Jan is among other things the author of “The New Book of Food Combining: A Completely New Approach to Healthy Eating”. You can purchase this and other books by Jan on Amazon.com and Bol.com.
Good News!
The good news is that you can combine most vegetables anyway you want. There are a few exceptions as some vegetables are very rich in starch or fat so they fall in those categories. The way it works is that you may combine any category of food with another compatible one in the same meal. For instance:
- Breakfast – Overnight oats with plant-based milked (mostly water), avocado or any vegetable of your choice
- Lunch – A greens salad with nuts and seeds, with an egg omelette
- Diner – Stir fryed vegetables with rice.
In the illustration below you see a more comprehensive view of good and poor food combinations.
Fruit is a different story. Fruit is digested quickly, it leaves your stomach within approximately 20 minutes. You can best eat fruit separately, as an appetizer 20 minutes before any meal.
What About Legumes?
Legumes, like white beans and chickpeas present an issue! They naturally are rich in protein and starch. As you can see in the drawing those two ingredients are incompatible in terms of food combination. This combination is also present in cereals but the ratio is better, the amount of protein in cereals is far lower than in the case of legumes.
In order to digest legumes well combine them with lots of vegetables. For instance mix a little bit of lentils in a salad with lots of green leafy vegetables.
A Good – and Tasty! – Food Combination Recipe
To make it clear that food combinations are compatible with a tasty meal, here’s an example. Thanks to Boerschappen again for the great ingredients and creative recipe!
The dish: celery medallions with truffle potatos, oven baked beets and (vegan) pesto.
Ingredients for two persons:
- 400 grams truffle potatoes
- 400 grams beets (the original recipe is with carrots but I replaced them)
- 200 grams celery
- Mustard, flour, water, pepper for seasoning
- Coriander / cilantro or whichever fresh herbs you have.
This foods combination is “green”:
- Celery, beets, fresh herbs = vegetables
- Potatoes and flour = starch
- Pesto = fat
Slice the beets in cubes and bake them in the oven on a tray for about 20 minutes. Boil the potatoes and cook them as you like.
Grate the celery. Mix that with a good spoonful of musterd, pepper, salt, some flour and water to bind the celery. Make little balls of the mixture. Throw the balls in a hot pan (use coconut or rice oil) and flatten the balls to create hamburger style paddies. Bake those 4 minutes on each side.
Put celery medallions, sliced potatoes, beets on the plates, drizzle pesto. the chopped cilantro or other herbs on top. Enjoy!