Hi Everyone,
I am curious to know how many raw foodies pay attention to food combining?
I notice a good portion of recipes on the site combine nuts and fresh fruits, combine two types of fats, such as oil and nuts or avacado and nuts, or combine grains and fresh fruits. If you are one that makes/eats these recipes do they interfere with your digestion. make you gassy, make you tired after a meal? Also do grains weigh you down and not provide much energy?
I am curious to know because I try my best to combine my meals properly and it has helped significantly with my digestion and energy levels. I am curious to know why people would eat a raw food diet if they don’t combine foods properly and are not reaping the benefits of raw foods – mainly cleansing the body/colon of toxins and increasing clarity and energy?...or possibly some people are not sensitive to food combining?
Thanks in advance for everyones input!
Comments
I don’t pay much attention to food combing yet as I am still very new to high raw and I am just trying to transition at this point. I am eating everything I want that tastes delicious while still trying to get the protein I “think” my body needs (hopefully that will pass for me) and not TOO much fat. I am sure food combining will come up later in my journey but right now all the delicious poorly combined recipes are helping me to ease in to this new lifestyle.
Hi Vibrance,
That is a very relevant topic in my journey right now. I consider myself pretty well read and self-educated when it comes to nutrition, however, I just recently started giving any credence to food-combining as I have never had any digestive problems (that I knew of at least).
I am 30 am have been a vegetarian since I was 14, vegan at 18 and “high-raw” by 27 and now at the beginning of this year I went all raw. It was actually one of the easiest transitions I have ever made and I quickly discovered that I was quite a whiz in the raw-food kitchen. I always have stayed away from the high nut, high sugar content recipes, because intuitively, they just seemed excessive considering I was not trying to mimic a SAD diet, since I hadn’t tasted those foods for over 16 years. However, about 4 months in (and for the last 2 months) I started to get really bad belly aches (gas mostly) I am quite lean and my stomach would punch out like I was pregnant! It was quite painful and uncomfortable. It seemed like it didn’t matter what I ate! I was getting quite frustrated when I finally starting my own ‘elimination diet’ to try and see if I could isolate the culprit. During this time I started delving deeper into blood typing and food combining to see if they held any answers for me. [It all has been very frustrating because, like I mentioned, I never had ANY food sensitivities before going raw.]
I managed to grab a few helpful tidbits from both sides. For one – my digestive tracks gets very angry now when I load up on the hot chili peppers, dried or fresh – especially cayenne. Which sucks, because I am slightly addicted to spicy food ?(produces serotonin ya know)
and certain rules of food combining do seem to make a BIG difference. For example – for lunch I would always make a big salad. In it I would put tons of veggies, sunflower seeds, red onion (bad for my blood type), avocado, & a dressing made of citrus and a combination of flax, sunflower and/or olive oil. Seemed harmless to me -but like clockwork the belly would arrive an hour after lunch and make the end of the very uncomfortable. SO no more combining of different fats in one meal. Also, for dinner and for lunch I love eating a banana or two as dessert. But I have stopped doing this if the meal before was heavy in oil/fat/nuts. [Grains are not current a part of my diet so I cannot attest to their effects one way or another]
So far (two weeks) so great! I feel much better keeping a few keys problem areas in mind. My assumption is that my system is getting cleaner and clearer with each passing day and that is making me more sensitive to the foods, as more of them are being absorbed. I think everybody is different and it is important to tune into your body, listen for the signs of distress and make changes if necessary. Most certainly – food combining is not an issue for many people or this blog would be overrun with people bemoaning the live vegan lifestyle :)
Cheers!
I could probably do better with food combining, but I always make sure I don’t combine avocados with nuts, or any fats with other fats, or fresh fruit with nuts.
If you don’t combine fruits with veggies… what does that mean for smoothies? For breakfast I’ve been making smoothies of spinach, banana, and another fruit i.e. peaches or berries. Does that go against the rules of combining?
Melaverde, I’m curious what a day of meals would be like for you… and what sort of dressing you would put on a salad. I’m just a few weeks into this and am trying to get into a groove.
Thanks for bringing up this topic, Vibrance, I was actually wondering the same thing about a lot of the ingredients in the recipes I’ve seen.
Many people mistake green leafy veggies in the typical group of veggies, however Green Leafy veggies COMBINE WITH EVERYTHING!! (ie spinich, lettuce ect) :)
Hey Everyone – thanks so much for all of your input!
Based on everyone’s input it seems like it depends on your body and what stage of the process of going raw you are in. I.E. someone that has been raw for 5 years may be more sensitive to food combinations b/c their body is a bit cleaner. Along with the theory that it depends on each individuals body, it may also depend on our genes. For example our genes have years and years of build up from the junk that our parents and grandparents ate, so everyone
Hi Vibrance -
I was at this amazing sustainable farm in the jungle of Costa Rica called Punta Mona. They live completely off the grid (all solar power) and offer retreats and educational classes in permaculture. Absolutely amazing experience. 3 fresh meals a day prepared from ingredients grown on the property and all the bananas and coconuts you can eat! (all for $25 a day!) They even had fresh Cacao…ridiculous :) I would wake up every morning at 4:30 to the sound of howler monkeys. Heaven on Earth. Can’t wait to go back :) check out their web-site: http://puntamona.org