Posted by kathryn in Fruit, Q & A Thursday and Food & Health Myths

Vanessa has asked about food combining – is it:

better to eat fruit as it’s own meal or snack – rather than in a dish or along side a meal – because it digests quickly compared with other foods?

The food combining approach to diet was first promoted by Dr William Hay in the 1920s. His eating plan – the Hay Diet – is still around today. In the Hay Diet all foods are seperated into three groups – alkaline, acidic and neutral and it’s believed that foods from different groups should not be eaten together as they use different digestive enzymes. For example acid foods should not be eaten with alkaline foods and so on.

This diet is actually one of my pet hates – so bear with me if I rant too much . . .

I don’t agree with, like or promote this approach. We humans have evolved to eat a wide variety of foods, whenever it was available. While it’s true that different digestive juices are released at different points along our digestive tract, this doesn’t mean we have to seperate our foods out. In fact, our digestive system is well equipped for handling different foods.

I’m also yet to see any believable reports that food combining works. There’s certainly no scientific evidence and I’m yet to hear any compelling clinical or empirical results.

The other part of this approach, that I really don’t like, is it makes food and eating more fussy than it needs to be . It’s hard enough getting most people to eat fruit, without setting rules about when and with what.

So, carry on eating your fruit whenever you want to!

12 July, 2007