Ayurvedic Food Combining 101: How to Avoid the Big Toxic No-Noes

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Improper food combining is a top source of toxins in the body, and there are some doozies on this list that you probably want to know about.

Why Does Food Combining Necessary?

The main reason food combining matters is that different foods require different sets of digestive enzymes. While certain enzymes work well together, others do not.

When foods that require drastically different enzymes and pH levels to digest are consumed together, the body becomes confused and cannot manage digestion efficiently.

That cost is toxic waste that gets trapped in the body, leading to putrefaction and fermentation in our gut.

The more complicated it is in there, the longer your food sits, which leads to bacterial overgrowth and uncomfortable digestive symptoms.

The easiest way to support your gut health is to simplify your diet, so let’s go through food combining in detail.

I think you’ll be surprised to learn where you might be making things difficult for your tummy.

1. Fruits

Not with other food, not with yogurt, not with milk, and likely not in the way you are having it in smoothies.

In general, fruit must be eaten alone and on an empty stomach.

Be especially careful with bananas and melons. They don’t combine well with other fruit, so don’t include them in a fruit salad, for example.

Enjoy fruit at least 30 minutes before a meal. This is how long it takes to digest. So, you could have it as a first course to your breakfast or as a snack to tide you over while cooking lunch.

Another time to enjoy fruit is at least 2–4 hours after a meal. This is how long food typically stays in the stomach.

Exceptions:

Enjoy fruit in smoothies with the following:

Fruit can combine with simple, non-starchy vegetables like kale and other leafy greens, fresh herbs like mint or basil, spices, and water.

For 5 Ayurvedic smoothie recipe ideas, see this post:

Enjoy acidic fruits with salad greens and non-starchy vegetables.

This is why tomatoes, grapefruit, oranges, strawberries, lemons, limes, and pomegranates are often featured in green salads. Other acidic fruits include pineapple and kiwi.

Enjoy acidic fruits with subacid fruits, but be sure to have sweet fruits separately.

Subacid fruits include apples, pears, apricots, peaches, grapes, plums, cherries, mango, and papaya.

Sweet fruits are figs, bananas, dates, persimmons, and other dried fruits.

Cooked fruit is okay to combine:

This means applesauce or fruit compote can be combined with yogurt and oatmeal!

Oh, here’s the right way to have yogurt—with seeds, nuts, and coconut milk. Notice, there’s no fresh fruit!

2. One protein at a time

Consider limiting your meals to one protein at a time.

Protein is considered heavy and difficult to digest. Meat and dairy are the heaviest of all, while egg whites and fish are lighter.

So, it stands to reason that it is particularly difficult for your body to digest multiple proteins in a single meal. This means you should think twice before adding cheese to your eggs, and say no to the cheeseburger.

Even more common examples are pizza with cheese and pepperoni or a beef burrito with cheese. These foods are very difficult to digest.

4 ways to enhance protein digestion

1. Eat your protein first so that your stomach can prioritize it for digestion.
2. Have way less protein in a meal than starch or vegetables.
3. Include leafy greens in your meal to assist with protein digestion.
4. Avoid having a lot of fat with your protein, as fat inhibits protein digestion.

If your digestion is sensitive, you can also consider limiting the number of starches you have in a single meal. However, starch is much easier to digest than protein.

3. Don’t mix protein and starch

Since the body requires a completely different pH to digest protein and starch, it’s best to avoid mixing them.

This rule applies mainly to people with sensitive stomachs and compromised digestion.

People with good digestion can usually handle a mixture of starch and protein, as long as the protein quantity is average. Both proteins and starches combine well with greens and non-starchy vegetables.

Examples include:

Leafy greens, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, asparagus, radish, cucumber, zucchini, onion, garlic, mushrooms, green beans, sweet peas, and fresh corn.

4. Rules for legumes

Here, I am talking about dried lentils, beans, and peas.

Avoid mixing legumes with fruit, cheese, eggs, fish, milk, meat, or yogurt. Cooked milk, buttermilk, or yogurt with spices is an exception.

Legumes are in the vegetable family, but they are considered both a protein, and a complex carbohydrate.

Half a cup of cooked legumes contains the same amount of protein as 1 ounce of meat and about the equivalent of an egg.

Legumes with rice or another grain create a complete protein for non-meat eaters.

Rice and beans is a great combo, as long as the rice is at least double the beans. Pairing legumes with leafy greens, non-starchy vegetables, or easy-to-digest vegetables makes them even easier to digest.

5. Nightshades and cheese – a big one!

Nightshades, such as potatoes, bell peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, and chili peppers, are considered mildly toxic and particularly irritating for pitta dosha.

Cheese is hot, heavy, and oily, which can also be irritating for pitta. So, watch out for Italian food like pizza and lasagna.

This doesn’t mean you should never eat them, though!

There are versions with less cheese and tomatoes and more vegetables. There are also many ways to make pasta without tomatoes and cheese. Think of simple pesto or vegetable primavera.

Also, if you have cooked leafy greens or raw green salads, they will aid the digestion of heavier foods.

6. Have cow’s milk on it’s own

Especially avoid combining milk with yogurt or fruit. If you need to thin out yogurt, use water.

Milk does not combine with bananas, so bananas are not a good idea on breakfast cereal.

Exceptions:

Do enjoy warm milk with spices.

Do enjoy cooked milk with oatmeal, rice, almonds, dates, figs, and raisins. Sounds like rice pudding!

Other grains are also okay with cooked and spiced milk.

7. Never cook honey

This includes baking and boiling. It changes the molecular structure into a form that is unrecognizable by the body.

5 Food Combining Tricks to Have Your Food and Digest It Too

1. If you have strong digestion or you are habituated to eating certain combinations of foods, the incompatible combinations might not bother you.

2. Adding digestive spices to incompatible foods makes them more compatible.

3. Cooking foods together in a single pot makes them more compatible—this is where soups, stews, and pressure cookers come in.

4. Occasionally breaking the rules will not be as harmful as regularly breaking them.

5. A small amount of an incompatible food will cause less of a negative result than a large amount.