Food Combining And Adult Acne

Lets talk about a confusing topic - food combining. It's mired with contradicting arguments and misinformation.

This is how I understand food combining (may or may not be true, but at least this works for me).

What is food combining

Simply put, food combining says that you should not eat two or more concentrated foods at the same meal. The most common concentrated foods are:

• Proteins - Animal proteins, dairy, vegetable proteins, etc
• Carbohydrates - Bread, pasta, pastries, potatoes, etc
• Fats - Butters, oil, avocado, nuts, etc

The food combining theory says that each type of concentrated food (proteins, carbs, fats) require very different digestion. If you eat them at the same meal neither gets digested properly.

Example of a bad food combination

Lets look at digestion of proteins and carbs to illustrate this.

Ideally carbohydrates should be digested like this. During chewing saliva gets mixed with the carbs. The saliva contains enzymes that begin the digestion. After chewing the food sits in the stomach for an hour or two. The pH-level in the stomach should remain only mildly acidic. The enzymes pre-digesting carbs deactivate in highly acidic condition.

During the time the food sits in the stomach the enzymes from the saliva pre-digest the food - up to 75%. After leaving the stomach it goes into the small intestine. There pancreas secretes more enzymes that finish the digestion.

Proteins should be digested like this. Your mouth has very little to do with digestion of proteins, besides grinding it to smaller pieces. The digestion begins in the stomach, which secretes HCL (hydrochloric acid) that breaks the proteins apart. Effective digestion of proteins requires highly acidic (pH 2) environment.

After spending few hours in highly acidic stomach the food enters the small intestine where the digestion is completed.

Put proteins and carbs in the stomach at the same time and things get confused. Sensing protein the stomach secretes HCL to bring down the pH. Yet, carbs requiring higher pH-level try to neutralize the HCL and the pH does not go low enough for effective digestion of proteins. Yet the pH-level is acidic enough to significantly slow down the digestion of carbs.

In this middle ground nobody is happy. Except for the bacteria in the stomach that feast on the food.

At the end of that mess you lose in valuable nutrients (only partially digested food)and gain in toxins (bacteria putrefying the food).

Laws of food combining

Pick any book on food combining and you'll notice that it can get quite complicated. Some books list numerous laws that you should follow. I'm going to spare you from that and just tell you what I've noticed from personal experience. These should be more than enough to prevent acne and keep you clear:

• Don't eat carbohydrates and proteins at the same meal. This is the most important rule.
• Fats don't agree with carbohydrates.
• Fruits should always be eaten alone and into empty stomach. Never eat fruits as dessert.
• Simple combinations always digest faster and smoother.
• Raw vegetables can be eaten with anything besides fruits.

Food combining in action

Don't think of these as The 10 Commandments, instead keep these as guidelines. You are going to live even if you eat little meat with pasta.

Combine the bulk of your meal from a one concentrated food and add plenty of vegetables to get some variety. For example, you could boil some pasta and top it up with stir-fried vegetables and a tasty sauce. If you want you can also add little meat, but keep it at minimum.

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