Food Combining

[chris48]

I am new to this board. I heard of food combining as a way to make digestion easier. I'd just like to get input as how effective or ineffective it would be to practice it. Is it part of the McDougall program? Thank you, Donna

[groundhogg]

Food combining isn't really a part of the McDougall program, but there are people here who have done it for various reasons of their own and could tell you about it.

Maybe one of 'em will see this post and respond!

One of the neat things about McDougalling is that it is possible to just follow his basic dietary guidelines alone, or even to try other things while McDougalling...some McDougallers have dabbled quite a bit in raw, or macrobiotics, food combining, or other ways to customize the diet to suit them personally. These things aren't necessary for everybody, but can be done, if desired, without interfering with McDougalling principles at all.

[Donna R]

in addition to what the friendly groundhog said--

some food combining "rules" say not to eat protein and carbohydrates at the same meal. that's not too hard if your meal is starch and vegetables and you won't be having the protein in animal products, anyway. if you follow the mcd guidelines but eat beans with vegetables and not starches you should be okay.

if you are interested in the acid/alkaline ratio, it's usually 80% alkalizing foods--which are acid but alkaline in the body. lots of info on the net and here's a site with the Pral list.
http://www.bitterpoison.com/archive/cal ... l-formula/

Burgess Laughlin is working on a site with info about his experiences. hopefully he'll be post about that soon.

[Sunny]

The only food combining I have ever heard of was eating beans and rice together to make a complete protein Whatever that was supposed to mean !!! I don't know how it came about but I always thought it was odd

I just eat from the McDougall plan and try not to worry about the rest

[groundhogg]

That "complete protein" thing was done as an effort to convince a society that believed you would die without meat that it was okay to be vegetarian. Western culture, maybe especially America, was of the mindset (because of earlier infant rat lab experiments which didn't apply to humans at all) that protein was the key to good health, and that you needed lots of ALL of the essential amino acid building blocks of protein each time you ate a morsel of food to absorb it properly.

Thus, the early proponents of vegetarianism tried to convince a protein-dazed society that you do get all of those essential amino acids into your body at once if you eat a whole grain and legume at the same meal.

But since then, that whole essential amino acid thing has been debunked many times over. You do need the essential amino acids, but your body can assimilate them to rebuild tissue by getting them at various intervals...it isn't necessary to get them all at once, maybe not even all on the same day.

T. Colin Campbell makes a pretty good point about this in The China Study, in which he carries that amino acid thing to the ultimate logical conclusion: if you want the perfect combination of amino acids...become a cannibal.

He points out that in fact, it's actually better for your health for several reasons to just casually get amino acids by eating a variety of plant foods and not even worrying about when the essential amino acids are coming from.

And of course, Dr. McDougall's "famous" statement is: Have you EVER seen anybody with a protein deficiency? And his point is that so many diseases are commonly seen that result from too much protein.

[Sunny]

That is one of my favorite lines ... "Have you ever seen anyone with a protein deficiancy "

Thanx for the info Groundhogg

[chris48]

Thank you all for your input. It's encouraging knowing help is just a click away.