Food Combining

Comments

• sarabethxvx

  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.
• jah rawstafari Raw Newbie

  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!
• rachel_akiko Raw Newbie

  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.
• melaverde

  Hi Vibrance, I agree with you about the importance of food combining. Honestly I believe that food combining rules are as important (if not more important) as RAW food in terms of heath benefit. I have been following in detail these rules for about 3 years (and have been 90% RAW for only 1 year) and noticed HUGE improvements in terms of health, energy, and digestion. Unfortunately (for us) most recepies I see posted in this site are not respecting the rules and therefore I can’t use them unless I find and alternative ingredient to work with.

  You stated: “I am curious to know why people would eat a raw food diet if they don
• angie207 Raw Master

  I eat a raw food diet because it makes me feel great – no matter what I eat with what, my health, mood & energy levels have improved significantly from eating raw.
• lizzyrose71

  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.
• melaverde

  —> Lizzyrose71: Food combining rules certainly add an extra challenge to the diet, I personally applied the food combining rules to my cooked diet (and results were amazing) and then after 2 years I became RAW, so maybe it wasn’t that difficult for me. Giving the complexity of the rules which are difficult to memorize I tend to mono-meal very often so that no error can be made. In my salads as dressing I only use extra virgin olive oil (cold pressed and organic) with a bit of sea salt. I know this may sound a very drastic diet but I haven’t switched overnight I have rather transitioned to it.
• angie207 Raw Master

  lizzyrose71 – I’ve heard the fruit/veggie no combo thing, too, but then I’ve heard that chimpanzees eat fruit & greens together…Whatever, I read “Raw Family” by Victoria Boutenko, and she said they allowed themselves ANY AMOUNTS AND COMBINATIONS OF FOODS, AS LONG AS THEY WERE ALL RAW, and they found out they were each drawn to a different diet – she called it BODY WISDOM. The reason I said I can eat any combination is that my body lets me know what, how much & when to feed it, and as long as I follow that, my health & digestion are great! And the things I combine or don’t combine change.
• ajchanter Raw Newbie

  Many people mistake green leafy veggies in the typical group of veggies, however Green Leafy veggies COMBINE WITH EVERYTHING!! (ie spinich, lettuce ect) :)
• VIBRANCE

  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
• jah rawstafari Raw Newbie

  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
• melaverde

  —>Vibrance: Based on the source that I am using and my personal experience Lemon is a very “delicate” ingredient. It is true what you said that it is alkaline (or at least it turns alkaline as a result of a chemical change in the stomach if I recall). There could be veggies that can be combined safely with lemons but I prefer to “isolate it” completely because of bad experiences in the past. As a source I am using a detailed table created by a family friend and leading Italian naturopath and author (A. Chiomento). Unfortunately it is only published in Italian. As other have mentionned there is a lot of conflicting info out there, in my opinion the best thing is to adopt someone’s combining rules and then “update” these based on personal experience/reactions.