Mainstream nutritionists have brainwashed the public into thinking that we should have a representative serving from each of the “four basic food groups” at each and every meal, plus a beverage and a desert.  Or, as my husband Steve is fond of quipping, a “balanced meal” has four colors on every plate:  something red, something green, something white and something yellow.  But the balanced meal is a gastronomic catastrophe that can only be processed by the very young with high digestive vitality, the exceptionally vital of any age, people with cast iron stomachs which usually refers to their good heredity, and those who are very physically active.

Few seem to realize that each type of food requires specific and different digestive enzymes in the mouth, stomach, and intestine.  Carbohydrates, fats, proteins—­each requires differing acid or alkaline environments in order to be digested.  Proteins require an acid environment.  Starch digestion requires an alkaline environment.  When foods in complex combinations are presented to the stomach all together, like a meal with meat, potatoes, gravy, vegetables, bread, butter, a glass of milk, plus a starchy sweet desert, followed by coffee or tea, the stomach, pancreas, liver and small intestine are overwhelmed, resulting in the fermentation of the sugars and starches, and the putrefaction of the proteins, and poor digestion of the whole.  It is little wonder that most people feel so tired after a large meal and need several cups of strong coffee to be able to even get up from the table.  They have just presented their digestive tract with an immensely difficult and for some an impossible task.

For the most efficient digestion, the body should be presented with one simple food at a time, the one bowl concept, easily achieved by adherence to the old saying, “one food at a meal is the ideal.”  An example of this approach would be eating fruits for breakfast, a plain cereal grain for lunch, and vegetables for supper.  If you can’t eat quite that simply, then proper food combining rules should be followed to minimize digestive difficulty, maximize the adsorption of nutrients from your food, and reduce or eliminate the formation of toxemia, and of course foul gas.

In general, fruit should be eaten alone unless you happen to be hypoglycemic or diabetic in which case fruit should be eaten with small quantities of a vegetable protein such as nuts, or yogurt and/or cheese if able to digest dairy.  Starches should be eaten with vegetables, which means that a well combined meal would include a grain such as rice, millet, buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa, corn, wheat, rye, oats, spelt, potatoes, or starchy winter squash combined with raw or cooked vegetables.  Protein foods such as meat, eggs, beans, lentils, tofu, split peas, should be combined with vegetables, raw or cooked.  But protein should never be combined with starches.  The most popular North American snacks and meals always have a starch/protein combination, for example:  meat and potatoes, hamburger in a bun, hot dog with bun, burrito with meat or cheese, meat sandwiches, etc.  It is little wonder that intestinal gas is accepted as normal, and that over time these hard to digest combinations eventually cause health problems that demand attention.