Pizza ‘n Cheesecake ‘n Melon, Oh My…..
by Bera Dordoni, N.D.
It’s Friday night. It’s been a long week. You’re tired, hungry, and want a drink to relax. You respect your body, so you only buy the best foods and beverages to fill it. You know you eat and drink all the right things: organic fruits and vegetables, non-GMO carbohydrates, free-range grass-fed animal protein, sulfite-free red wine, raw chocolate (oh, yeah!).
A look in your refrigerator confirms that everything you need for a gourmet meal is right there in front of you. Pull out a steak from a neighboring ranch where they raise free-range, grass-fed beef. A big chunk of fresh rye bread – homemade, of course. Your own giant, organically grown potato with a nice, thick skin will be so tasty when it’s baked and filled with sour cream, chives, butter and garlic—all organic, naturally. The salad greens are from your garden, as well, and you’ve got a choice of dressings you can use. For dessert there’s a fruit salad you can put together with grapes, apples, mangoes, watermelon, blueberries and oranges while the potato is baking.
Wow, my mouth is watering, isn’t yours? It’s the perfect meal, right?
Uh…no.
Taken separately, nothing’s wrong with any of those foods, but combined together, they’re a disaster waiting for a place to happen—like our intestines. Our digestive system was never meant to host a buffet or smorgasbord. The human body was designed to consume one type of food at a time.
Our body runs on the nutrition we derive from the foods we eat just like a car runs on the fuel we insert in its tank. Our digestive system draws those nutrients from food by breaking it down with enzymes so it can be assimilated and used in our body. So far, so good, right? But here’s the kicker:
The enzymes that digest hard animal proteins are different from the enzymes that digest carbohydrates.
Enzymes would never make it in a kindergarten class—they don’t work and play well together. What they do is neutralize each other. Rude, right? But unavoidable, because internally, our body is an alkaline environment. Consequently, it requires a different kind of enzyme for every food we eat. So, when the enzymes that would digest our steak encounter the enzymes that would digest that fantastic, loaded, baked potato, they both just stop.
Neither breaks anything down, which means the food just kind of lies there in our system. Doing nothing.
Except the digest tract never stops, so since it cannot actually digest, it just kind of…churns. Causing bloat. That miserable, uncomfortable bloat that makes us run for the antacid either before or after our meal.
Consider what happens when a pepperoni pizza, Italy’s gift to American indigestion, enters our digestive tract.
The three different types of enzymes—those for the crust (hi-acid carbohydrate), those for the cheese (low-acidic protein), and those for the pepperoni (hi-acidic protein)—immediately clash, which makes them all stop.
None of the enzymes that have rushed into our digestive tract are doing their job of breaking down the crust, cheese, and pepperoni. So what are they doing?
They’re at war with each other, neutralizing each other, churning around to prevent each other from processing their respective food particles. In short, since they cannot break down the foods, they’re causing bloat and heartburn.
Meanwhile, the undigested food is turning into a gloppy foundation for bacteria, which, yes, will eventually decompose but not actually digest it. That undigested food glop builds up in our digestive tract, lining our small intestine and colon, and making our liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and spleen work harder every time we eat. Plus, the longer undigested foods stay in the body, the more chance of developing deep-rooted illnesses such as chronic constipation and its side-effect companion diarrhea, chronic indigestion, irritable bowel syndrome, diverticulitis, polyps, cancer…you get the picture.
“But I take Tums® whenever I get gassy, so what’s the problem?”
Taking Tums® whenever you get gassy is the problem. Listen to this conversation I witnessed when I went out to lunch with some friends.
“Did you bring your Tagamet® with you?” DeeAnn asked.
“Of course. I came to eat lunch, silly,” Janet responded. “What do you take to digest your food, Prilosec®?”
“No, I use Pepcid AC®. It seems to work better for me now.”
Laura kicked in her two cents: “Try Zantac®. My doctor put me on it last week.”
I’m not kidding—three out of four of us at the table automatically took a digestive aid so they could eat a meal without discomfort.
Is that how we want to live?
It’s so much easier—and cheaper and safer—to keep the “big bloat” at bay with proper food combining than with antacids, whether they’re prescription or over the counter. All we have to do is remember a few basic realities.
Fruit
Raw fruit, the most alkaline food available, is filled with live enzymes that naturally cleanse and detoxify the body besides providing energizing vitamins. Raw fruit digests rapidly, so always eat it on an empty stomach, or its enzymes will actually try to ferment any other food eaten first. That creates painful—and potentially harmful—acidy bloat.
Melon
Eat melons alone or leave melons alone. They are really only compatible with themselves and other melons. Never include them in a fruit salad with other types of fruits!
Vegetables
Vegetables go with most anything: proteins, carbohydrates, even fats. Eat them raw or cooked for three or four minutes at the most to retain their nutrients. Soggy vegetables have barely any nutritional or fiber value.
The most healthful vegetables for combination meals are high-water-content veggies such as bamboo shoots, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, romaine, cabbage, carrot, celery, chard, cucumber, eggplant, endive, kale, kohlrabi, lettuces, okra, parsnip, peppers, rutabaga, sorrel, sprouts, some squashes, etc.
Proteins
Proteins are not all alike, since there are vegetable proteins, hard animal proteins and soft animal proteins. Flesh is considered a hard animal protein, which takes much longer to digest than a soft animal protein such as an egg or an unpasteurized cheese. Although fish is a flesh protein, it is usually considered an easier food to digest than beef, chicken or pork, and may take less time to pass through the intestinal tract.
Eat animal proteins alone or with vegetables only, especially high-water-content ones. Just avoiding bread, potatoes, rice, and pasta with this protein will eliminate any discomfort and potentially harmful effects from the meal.
Eating fermented food with friendly bacteria/probiotics will actually assist in the digestive process – think sauerkraut or kimchee or a homemade pickle.
Drinks
This may be the toughest change to remember: washing down a meal —any meal—with any kind of cold liquid, even cold water, can inhibit those enzymes from doing their digestive work.
The cold solidifies any oils or fats, which slows down the digestive process. When fats turn to sludge, they react with any available acid and are absorbed by the intestine more rapidly than the solid foods lining the intestine. In other words, cold liquids, even water, can turn otherwise rapidly digested foods into un- or partially digested food glop.
Only drink hot or warm liquids after a meal. Reverse your menu and serve the soup last! Sip it slowly to avoid diluting those enzymes that are busy digesting the single-type or easy-combination foods just consumed.
It’s Really That Easy
I love to eat. I love all sorts of foods made with all kinds of spices. But I love feeling better after a meal rather than worse, and I’m not interested in having to down non-nutritional, non-food chemical products like Tagamet® or Prilosec® or Pepcid AC® or Zantac® just so I can enjoy my meal.
When you think about it, food combining is simple, natural and easy.
- Eat fruit before, not after, other foods.
- Eat veggies with animal proteins or carbs, but don’t eat animal proteins with carbs.
- Drink cold stuff between meals, hot stuff immediately after – sipped slowly.
So, pizza & cheesecake & melon all together? Uh, I don’t think so. ________________________________________________________
Dr. Bera “The Wellness Whisperer” Dordoni, N.D.
Specializing in immune system rehabilitation, restoration, and maintenance through nutritional counseling, life-style coaching, and the laws of attraction. To purchase I Have a Choice?!, schedule a private consultation, or learn more about her next workshop, wellness retreat, or natural-health class, visit www.bastis.org or call 505-783-9001.