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Food combining is one of those critical areas that can be the key difference-maker in an individual either achieving optimal, robust health, or somebody falling way short of that and continuing to sabotage their health, and not knowing why.
Somebody could really clean up their consumption of food and eat very healthily, or even make a full transition into raw foods — due to the desire to solve their health problems or achieve ideal levels of energy — but still unknowingly create very acidic conditions within their body due to negative effects from bad food combining. This can cause a block from his or her body achieving an alkaline state and actually healing itself.
Transversely, for individuals who are eating a more standard modern diet of cooked foods, if their food is combined properly, even if the food is acid-forming to begin with, some people can still maintain relatively good well-being and functionality for an extended period of time. For example, look at a certain modality like the paleo style of eating, where somebody might eat roasted meat, with a salad, and some cooked vegetables, but with no dairy and no bread or grains. Even though the meat would be decently acid-forming and the cooked vegetables would be mildly acid-forming, this is essentially good food combining. After eating this meal, this person would have avoided other even worse acidic chemistry from insufficient digestion that would have occurred if he or she had combined their foods badly.
If that same paleo-eater at a separate meal ate a baked potato or sweet potato, with a salad perhaps, but with no meat or protein, then again that would also be good food combining — even though the starchy gluey cooked potato, with its complex sugars and high glycemic index would still result in an acidic-forming process within the body.
However, if this person ate the meat and the potatoes together in the same meal, this is a classic example (which we will extrapolate on in this section) of bad food combining — a starch and a protein combined together at one meal. This would be exponentially worse and would cause far more acidic consequences and nutrient deprivation to the body, when these foods are combined and eaten together in one sitting.
The point of going through that example is not that cooked meat or cooked potatoes are healthy or recommended foods in the first place. It’s just to point out that the acidic nature of digesting these foods is multiplied exponentially whenever they are combined together improperly. Examples like a turkey sandwich, a hamburger, fish and chips, chicken and rice, spaghetti and meatballs, meat and potatoes, and so many staples in the modern diet are in classic violation of good food combining.
Just as a person eating acid-forming foods can have a moderate level of success when eating them using proper food combining, so too can a person eating alkaline-forming foods experience great adversity and blockages to achieving good health if these otherwise healthy, alkaline foods are combined improperly.
This is a very important message, because this section isn’t quite frankly to teach people how to eat cooked unhealthy foods in certain ways to create less acidity and harm within the body (although you could and it would be better than eating junk foods combined improperly). This information is meant to help instruct people who are embracing more healthy foods — especially fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds — how to avoid a situation where somebody is eating lots of healthy food choices but still harming the body due to bad food combining, unbeknownst to them.
It’s temping to think, ‘Well, I’m eating raw foods and all healthy organic ingredients, therefore my body will appreciate that, regardless of how they’re consumed.’ I wish it were that easy. In fact, the solution and recommended food combining techniques are actually simple. It’s humans who have overcomplicated things and over-intellectualized how we eat food. After all, there are barely any other examples of animals who combine different types of foods when eating.
Remember from the chapter on ‘How the Body Digests and Processes Foods’ we learned the journey of different types of foods after they’re eaten? Now, we will take that knowledge and awareness up to the next level of what goes on in your body when you give it certain foods.
Each segment in Rapid Regeneration builds upon the foundation of knowledge from the prior segments. Based on the previous segment, you understand how the body digests different foods like simple sugars, complex sugars (like starches), fats and protein — if those foods are eaten alone. Now we need to observe how the body behaves when different types of digestive activities interfere with each other.
I will walk through several concepts which have taken me years (almost a decade) to learn. I have arrived at these concepts after much trial and error, personal experience and experimentation, mentorship from top experts, and deep research.
These concepts are meant to be taken with a slight grain of salt. They work for me, and for many countless others, but everybody and every ‘body’ is different and some people have a higher tolerance for improperly combining foods than others and still doing fairly well. Treat each piece of data with a bit of nuance and use your intuition as a barometer for what is accurate and effective to accomplish what works for you.
Ultimately, the goal is alkalization, detoxication, and regeneration. I don’t intend to ‘spoil the fun’ of eating pleasurably or make eating raw, healthy foods not fun because I’m creating a bunch of rigid rules. I am simply looking at the chemistry objectively and will acknowledge if something is creating a problem, even if it’s inconvenient to deal with.
Here are 19 concepts which can help you to accelerate your speed towards achieving your health and wellness goals.
Concept #1: Simple sugars are the easiest thing for the body to digest — they are digested in the small intestine.
We have covered before repeatedly the fact that simple sugars are the easiest food for the body to digest. These would be sugars from fruits and vegetables.
The stomach gets a reputation for being an acidic chamber that digests food. That is true — however, simple sugars don’t really require an acidic digestive process. They will be moved through the stomach chamber swiftly and into the small intestines, where they are digested via an alkaline process through enzymes excreted by the small intestines and the pancreas (glucose especially will require more assistance from the pancreas as compared with fructose).
This describes the process of how simple sugars get easily digested (if eaten alone).
Concept #2: Eat your fruits (and vegetables for the most part) by themselves, without combining them with other types of foods.
If you eat fruit alone, then it will pass quickly through the stomach and head to the intestines to be digested via a smooth, alkaline process. The result is incredibly powerful alkaline chemistry that will assist to cleanse, energize and revitalize your body.
This amazing result is dependent on the fruit passing undeterred through the stomach and to their digestion destination — the small intestine. If the simple sugars get held up in the stomach, the sugars will ferment. Think about it — your stomach is a chamber that is almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit. If you were to chew up a piece of fruit, spit it out into a bowl, and put it out in the hot sun on a hot summer day (without the enzymes from the small intestine to break down the fruit puree), it would be fermenting and spoiling within an hour. Instead of the fruit digesting properly and being utilized as fuel, it will putrefy and essentially rot and bacteria will break it down.
If this happens, unfortunately it spoils the nutrients that your body would have otherwise benefited from. When fruit is improperly combined, and the sugars ferment in the stomach, then the simple sugars are not available for digestion via the small intestine, which the body needs for fuel. Instead, alcohol and acetic acid are created from the simple sugars being held up in the stomach, among other acids.
When foods are improperly combined, because the fruit is combined with a starch, fat, or protein, the efficient processing of simple sugars is not possible. The body ultimately is starved for real nutrition at the end of this process, resulting in more over-eating and possibly more improper food combining — the vicious cycle can perpetrate itself of eating seemingly healthy foods but with a result that is not healthy at all.
Concept #3: Protein is digested in the stomach and requires a complex acid digestive process.
As we have covered previously, protein needs to be digested in the stomach via an acidic process. Pepsin is an enzyme which is released which helps chew up the protein and break it down, so that the small intestine and pancreas can further digest the matter, and ultimately the body can use the amino acids from it.
Protein needs this acidic, pepsin-centric process in order to digest properly. However, if you ingest sugars, then an alkali is released in the stomach. If that happens, then this inhibits the release of pepsin to digest the protein. Even if some amount of pepsin gets released, if you have an alkaline and acid reaction both being released in the stomach to digest two different things, the two neutralize each other and neither food is adequately digested.
Concept #4: Each stage of the digestive process is like a puzzle piece. If one stage is missed or messed up, then it won’t fit into the next stage.
Food has got to be digested adequately in each stage in order for it to be received efficiently in the subsequent stage.
For example, if a protein is eaten with a starch, then the ptyalin enzyme secreted to digest the starch will inhibit the production of pepsin, and the protein will not digest properly. If this happens, then undigested protein will then be transported to the small intestine. However, the small intestine cannot convert undigested protein matter into aminos acids, unless the protein has been properly broken down by the pepsin via stomach digestion. Therefore, the protein (and the amino acids contained within it) will be unusable.
To describe this more specifically — after pepsin in the stomach converts protein into peptides, the protein leaves the stomach, receives the enzyme trypsin from the pancreas, and goes into the small intestine where the protein is then converted into amino acids by the enzyme erepsin.
So you can see this is a complex process which fits together like a puzzle. If any of these steps are interfered with, then it destroys the body’s ability to properly digest the protein. For example, if the protein is not broken down properly by pepsin while in the stomach, the enzyme erepsin will be completely ineffective on the protein which is not broken down. So it’s just a hunk of undigested matter at that point which will rot and ferment throughout the intestines.
Concept #5: Fruits and starches should not be eaten together. If fruits are eaten with a starch, it will inhibit the digestion of the starch.
The eating of the fruits can degrade or destroy ptyalin, which is a necessary enzyme for starch digestion. Therefore, starches and fruits (simple sugars) should not be eaten together. Also, the sugar will ferment in the stomach while awaiting the starch to digest, turning into alcohol and depriving the body of the benefit of digesting the simple sugars in the small intestine.
Actually, starches are not really recommended to eat anyway, because they are disagreeable to the digestive tract for other reasons covered more extensively in other sections. However, since you may decide to eat starchy foods anyway (corn, potatoes, very starchy vegetables like summer squash, etc.), it is worth covering this information.
Concept #6: Protein and starch eaten together are a classic violation of proper food combining.
Starch requires an alkaline environment for digestion. Protein requires an acidic digestive process. If eaten together, both digestive processes will be impaired, halted and/or cancelled out. This essentially results in two different groups of foods, neither of which is properly digested, and both of which will putrefy and rot slowly as they get transported over 24 to 48 hours while sitting in your intestines.
Concept #7: Different digestive juices are secreted depending on the food which is eaten.
This was proven out by Pavlov in his series of extensive experiments with ‘Pavlov’s Dogs’. Even the smell or preparation of certain foods can produce enzyme production suited for that specific food type.
The production of enzymes from your body is amazing and complex. Your body is amazingly efficient and it is also an energy miser — in other words, your body doesn’t want to use any more energy than is necessary.
This is important because your body is only trying to help you to digest food as efficiently as possible. Your body was designed for a natural setting, and doesn’t necessarily understand the modern world with complex menus and contrived dishes using a smorgasbord of different ingredients and macro-nutrients all in one serving. Help your body do what it does best — feed it on its own level that it is designed to function at.
Concept #8: The stomach has different compartments, which are suited for digestion of different types of foods.
The distal end (lower end) of the stomach is more used for gastric juice digestion, AKA protein digestion. The motile end (upper end) of the stomach can be a chamber where salivary digestion is still taking place, AKA starch digestion.
In theory, if meat and bread are eaten in separate bites, the body could be intelligent enough to separate these foods within the area of the stomach, so protein could be digesting in the lower half while starch could be digesting separately in the upper half. However, if protein and starch are chewed together, such as a hamburger (or so many other dishes), and then the mixture is sent to the stomach, the stomach may not be able to tell the difference of the chewed up mash and separate it — they would then both not digest fully.
Concept #9: Putrefaction by means of bacterial breakdown is a harmful and toxic process which should be avoided.
When foods are improperly combined, the stomach does not convert the molecular structure of the foods correctly in order to give the digestive tract the right substances which it can actually convert into fuel. Instead, the body has a sort of undigested mass of stuff that must be broken down somehow. The putrefaction of this glob of chewed up food commences, within the small intestine, and especially within the colon (large intestine). When partially digested food putrefies, this means that it spoils, decays, deteriorates and goes bad as it travels through your gut. Is it any wonder the massive rates of problems people are having with their colons in this day and age?
On the other hand, proper breakdown of food by enzymes, when food is digested properly, does actually resemble putrefaction on some level. Just keep in mind the big difference — the end result from proper enzyme digestion is beneficial nutrients instead of toxic materials from putrefaction. The scientific community even can become confused over this, observing bacterial decomposition and putrefaction in the large intestine as so-called ‘normal activity’ — because in fact it may closely resembles enzyme breakdown. Just keep in mind the toxic, acidic chemical result and by-products from putrefaction are completely different as compared with healthy and proper breakdown of food from your actual digestive enzymes.
When food is improperly combined and bacterial decomposition occurs, at that point, the bacteria are having a field day — they certain thrive on this activity. In the process of breaking down the undigested food — and even robbing you of some of the nutrients and amino acids — they excrete chemicals such as carbon dioxide (causing gas and bloating), acids like phenyl-propionic acid and phenyl-acetic acid, and hydrogen sulphide. These are very harmful compounds and lead to over-acidity of the body. This can cause other undesirable responses from the body like mucus formation, water retention, and build-up of cholesterol as a defense to the overly acidic conditions being created.
The problems is that not all of these chemicals created by this bacterial decomposition process are disposed of via the colon as waste out of the body. The large intestine after all is designed to absorb, and so many of these chemicals get absorbed back into the body and into the bloodstream. At this point, they then have to be filtered out of the body, via the kidneys and urinary system — this overworks the kidneys and everything else.
While we do need to maintain a healthy colony of probiotic bacteria within our bodies, just keep in mind that having rotting, fermenting food working its way through your gut encourages an environment where parasitic species can proliferate, including fungus, yeast, all sorts of harmful organisms and even worms of all sizes.
Concept #10: Fats and proteins should ideally not be eaten together.
Fats would be considered things like oils, creams, and fatty meats. Very rich and dense fats have an inhibiting effect upon secretion of digestive juices. This inhibiting effects means that the digestion of protein can be paused and held up for hours resulting in the putrefaction of the protein.
It seems like the oil/fat simply can prolong the digestion of protein and ultimately create more putrefaction and less complete digestion of the protein. Just pay attention to your body and increase your level of awareness around this — you may want to air on the side of being more cautious.
Concept #11: Proteins should generally not be eaten with fruit, although there are a few exceptions.
Because fruits get held up in the stomach when digested with a protein and ferment into alcohol (because the protein takes a while in the stomach to digest), their beneficial content can be ruined when consumed with protein. Also, acids stop the secretion of gastric juice, so the effect of eating a fruit can actually halt the production of the juices needed to break down the protein.
One exception that I have heard of about this is for proteins which are protein-rich but also contains oil, namely nuts and avocados (and cheese, which I would not recommend eating at all but is worth mentioning). These foods already are expected to have a suppressed or delayed secretion of gastric juices, due to their fat content inhibiting that. Therefore, it seems like there is not as much of a downside to also consuming fruits with these types of proteins which also contain oils.
Concept #12: Non-starch vegetables are considered neutral and can be combined with other foods.
Non-starch vegetables are sort of a neutral category that doesn’t bother other groups — they are sort of the Switzerland of food groups. These vegetables don’t need large amounts of ptyalin or a strong alkaline environment to digest properly.
Some people seem to do well on a paleo or paleo-ish diet (which pays a certain tribute to proper food combining). A meal might involve cooked chicken, turkey or fish with non-starchy vegetables, either a salad with spinach, chard, or kale, or cooked vegetables like okra, green beans, greens and/or zucchini.
To clarify, starchy type vegetables would be excluded from being combined with protein — these would include foods like beets, potatoes, beans and peas, corn, carrots and cauliflower. Starch digestion is specific and can interfere with other types of food digestion, like sugar, protein and/or fat.
Concept #13: There does exist in nature food combinations of different substances like sugars, starches, proteins and fats.
In nature, foods are naturally balanced and there is rarely such a thing as a pure sugar, starch, protein or fat. Take for example a banana — this is partly a sugary food, and partly starchy as well. It also contains a decent amount of protein and a modest amount of fat (there are rarer types of bananas which actually contain more fat). Yet, the body is able to still figure out how to digest a food like this (and many other foods that have different categories of macronutrients contained within one food).
Concept #14: Some of these concepts are more shades of grey and not black and white.
This is a good opportunity to point out that these are not necessarily hard-and-fast laws in the same way that gravity is a law, or that there are chemical laws like about acidity and alkalinity which always remain constant. Please know that I don’t intend for these to be set-in-stone as laws, because there are some nuances involved. These concepts about food combining are more like guidelines, which can help you reach your desired destination faster and help you avoid perilous mistakes and errors which can slow up your road to ultimate good health and wellness.
It’s even possible that some person may be able to handle bad food combinations differently than another. And some people can handle the acidic nature of bacterial decomposition from food fermenting in their gut better than others.
You can even ‘game the system’ so to speak, which is covered more extensively in other sections about where to get your fat and protein from when trying to eat healthy. For example, you can add a scoop or two of ground up hemp and chia seed powder to a banana smoothie, mixing it in and increasing the fat and protein content of this fruit meal. This would resemble a different species of tropical banana that has a higher fat and protein content. The body seems to respond well to this combination and it curbs the craving for fat and protein.
So as I mentioned, even in nature these macronutrients are still combined to some degree across these different categories, and there are shades of grey. So keep an open mind and don’t get completely cemented in stone and rigid. With that said, also just know that these are hacks and shortcuts — by ignoring this information completely because it sounds inconvenient or too difficult, you are liable to delay getting to the results you want, so please still value this information and try it for yourself.
Concept #15: If foods are combined properly, ideal weight management is more achievable and portion size is not as important.
Because food is no longer putrefying and is being digested and utilized properly throughout the body for energy, it is far easier to eliminate weight problems and maintain an ideal weight when combing food properly. One big plus of good food combining is reducing the pressure of worrying so much about specific portion sizes.
Concept #16: Drinking liquids during or close to the time of a meal will dilute the digestive juices and have an undesirable effect upon the digestive process.
It is advisable that liquids such as water or tea not be drunk during or close to mealtimes. Liquids will dilute and literally ‘water down’ the stomach enzymes and acids. This will cause digestion to take longer and be less effective, and can even risk the food not digesting properly, allowing it to leave the stomach undigested to ferment as it moves through the bowels.
Don’t drink liquids at mealtimes — it’s that simple. If you start eating fruits during meals, which contain a high water content anyway, you may be surprised that this can actually quench your thirst and you won’t desire water.
Concept #17: Eating an abundance of green vegetables can possibly have a beneficial effect or counteract some of the harm of bad food combinations.
Especially relative to fat digestion, where fat would typically delay the digestion of other foods like protein because it gets held up in the stomach for hours while being broken down by the enzyme lipase — if an abundance of greens are consumed at this same time, then it has been reported to prevent such a long delay and speed up the digestion of the entire contents of the meal.
Concept #18: A few higher level guidelines on eating fruits.
Please keep in mind that these fruit category combinations are a higher level way of eating fruit (kind of like extra credit) so don’t be disappointed or feel bad if you’re not quite there yet — just keep expanding your awareness about this.
Ideally, different categories of fruits can be eaten separately — sweet fruits together, acid fruits together, sub-acid fruits together, berries together, and melons together.
If combined, dried fruits could be eaten ideally with other sweet fruits. Sweet fruits, sub-acid fruits and berries combine decently well. Sub-acid fruits, acid fruits and berries also combine decently well. Sweet fruits don’t mix very well with acid fruits.
Ideally, melons should be eaten by themselves and not even combined with other types of fruits. Melons partake in their digestive process within the small intestines — they essentially skip the stomach entirely. Therefore, if they are held up in the stomach, the sugars will ferment and turn into alcohol very quickly, which is toxic and not a nutritional way to consume that energy from the fruit.
Avocados are a fruit in their own category, being both a fatty and protein food. It would be more acceptable to consume avocados with acid fruits comparatively — it would not be advisable to eat avocado with sweet fruits. Coconuts are a starchy protein fruit and it would be advised to eat this alone and not to combine it with any other type of fruit. If fruits are consumed with nuts, although the protein digestion can impact the fruit sugar digestion and cause the fruit to spoil and ferment, the digestion of the nuts doesn’t seem to be affected in a big way. This is another example where different people’s bodies may react differently — some people may be able to handle this combination better than others.
Concept #19: As much as different types of foods do not combine well, so too should consideration be made for combining environmental factors with meals.
There are times when you just should not eat, such as when you are tired or right in the middle of strenuous stressful work. It would be a bad idea, for example, to eat during an angry argument with a loved one.
Sometimes, this is not always avoidable. In the course of job duties, for example, it can’t be avoided to have to eat during this period of time. But your body is intelligent and all-encompassing — you are an electrical, vibrational being of not just chemistry and physics but also electricity and wavelengths. Your body is processing all of the data that is being inputted, not just the food.
Ultimately, eating and nourishment is supposed to be done in a relaxed environment. If your body is stressed out, with a high cortisol response and your nervous system on edge, it will be unable to truly let the parasympathetic system take over and handle the automatic functions of the body like digesting your food and turning it into energy.
Conclusion:
All of this information in this section could have been a separate book entirely because it’s an extensive subject. It took a lot of research and many years of experience. I am even sure that there is information about food combining that I missed and which is not covered here, although I tried to get the lion’s share of it compiled in one place so that you can use it to increase your success.
Ultimately, I am aware that all of the other information in Rapid Regeneration hinges upon the proper combining and ordering of the advice. Even if you whole-heartedly embrace the world of raw foods and the hidden powers of how eating healthier can transform your life, if you apply that knowledge incorrectly, or out of order, or in improper combination — ‘too much of a good thing’ or mixing two good things which are good separately but don’t go well together — then the rest of the knowledge is rendered useless. This well-intentioned but poorly-executed approach can even continue to harm you and create acidic chemical conditions within your body.
The point of all this is to reverse the chemistry of your body and create an alkaline, healing environment where the true God-like powers of the universe can be summoned for you to create your best possible life and channel your highest energy. In order to do that, all keys of knowledge and secrets of the ages will be needed to assist, and the proper combining of this knowledge is of the utmost importance for you to achieve the mission.
Use it wisely…