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”:

1. Celery, beets, fresh herbs = vegetables 
2. Potatoes and flour = starch
3. 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!   

This squash is very low in calories (27 per 100 gram), it’s almost completely fat free and it is loaded with nutrients: fiber, vitamin C, manganese, vitamin B6… It also contains carotenoids, which the body converts into vitamin A. Although it is mildly sweet this squash contains little sugar (2,5 gram per 100 gram). (source)

Why is it called spaghetti squash? I’ll come back to that later with a recipe. Allow me first to finish praising its health benefits.

Antioxydants

Winter squash varieties like spaghetti squash are loaded with antioxidants. Antioxidants search and destroy free radicals from the body cells and prevent or reduce the damage caused by oxidation. “Oxidative stress can damage cells, proteins, and DNA, which can contribute to aging. It may also play a role in development of a range of health conditions, including diabetes, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.“ (source)

In laymen’s terms: antioxidants are good for you!

Fiber

Eat a lot of squash and other veggies: the value of fiber cannot be underestimated. Fiber is a type of carbohydrate that the body can’t digest. Fiber helps regulate the body’s use of sugars, helping to keep hunger and blood sugar in check.

Fiber comes in two varieties, both beneficial to health (source):

• Soluble fiber, which dissolves in water, can help lower glucose levels as well as help lower blood cholesterol. Foods with soluble fiber include oatmeal, nuts, beans, lentils, apples and blueberries.
• Insoluble fiber, which does not dissolve in water, can help food move through your digestive system, helping prevent constipation. Foods with insoluble fibers include whole wheat, whole grain couscous, brown rice, legumes, carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes.

And squash? Well, it’s highly soluble. So it’s a good idea to complement it with insoluble fiber. In addition note that spaghetti squash is low in protein so it’s also a good idea to mix your squash with an additional source of protein. Let me get back to that in the recipe!

Fiber, from fruits and vegetables, is good for your gut health. For some reason I have come across the gut health topic a lot in the past few of weeks. The brain-gut connection, the gut microbiom and other gut-related topics are fascinating and definitely deserve a lot of attention. I shall get back to this in the future. 

For the time being remember that fiber and a diversity of nutrients are necessary to feed the  microbes that keep your gut in balance. Fat and animal proteins don’t contain any fiber, hence favour carbohydrate-heavy, organic and real (unprocessed) foods.

Spaghetti Squash Oven Dish Recipe

Having said all that, here is at last a delicious Spaghetti Squash recipe. As mentioned earlier I discovered this ingredient thanks to our weekly subscription to Boerschappen. 

You can find the original Boerschappen recipe (in Dutch) here. 

The recipe in English with my tasty additions. You need, for 2 persons (single dish) or 4 persons (side dish):

• Spaghetti squash (1)
• Tomatoes (200 gram)
• Spinach (100 gram)
• Lentils (tin, strained)
• (Vegan) feta (200 gram)
• Lemon
• Onion (1)
• Garlic (2 cloves)
• Fresh ginger and turmeric / kurkuma (a thumb-like piece) 
• Fresh herbs like celery or sage leaves.

Instructions:

• Switch your oven on and set it at 180 degrees Celsius.
• Wash the squash and then cut in two equal halves. Remove the seeds using a spoon.
• Sprinkle the inside of the squash with a bit of oil, peper and salt. Place the squash in the oven faces up, directly on the grill or in an oven dish.
• Bake the squash in approximately 35 minutes.
• Throw the onion, garlic, turmeric and ginger in a small electric chopper and chop them roughly.
• Heat (rice or coconut) oil in a pan and put fry your spices mix. If you don’t have fresh turmeric or ginger, use the dry powder alternative instead.
• Cut the tomatoes in rough cubes and add them to the pan, stir the spinach and fresh herbs. Having strained the lentils you can add them to the mix and warm the whole thing up.
• Once the tomato-spinach-lentils mix is slightly cooked, remove the pan from the heat. 
• Once the squash is ready proceed to scrape the flesh from the shell using a fork. That’s where the spaghetti-shaped strings appear. My wife thought the texture felt like sauerkraut, but the acidity is definitely absent. 
• Mix the squash strings with the rest of the vegetables and divide the mixture over in the two empty shells.
• Dice the (vegan) feta and push the cubes into the mixture. 
• Bake the squash in 5-7 minutes in the oven.
• Once it’s ready add lemon juice to the squash and serve.

Adding fresh spices and lentils to the recipe helps 1) create a balanced meal thanks to the protein of the lentils, 2) add Asian flavour and heat which I particularly like.

Enjoy!