Why the food combining lifestyle is easy

Why food combining is NOT expensive

The Food Combining Lifestyle encourages us to dispense with expensive junk and convenience foods.

Until recently, almost all meals were cooked from fresh ingredients. We ate fresh vegetables in their seasons. Some were tinned, but many housewives scorned the use of tinned vegetables and used only those grown in their own gardens or bought from the local greengrocer. These in turn came from local producers and were used before they had time to lose many of their vitamins. Tinned fish and meat, although available, were similarly used less often than fresh by those who valued a healthy lifestyle.

Nowadays, many people eat convenience foods such as dehydrated, chilled or frozen ready-meals. Frozen, pre-cooked chips are used instead of making fresh ones and you can even buy ready-prepared baked potatoes. Many of us have been persuaded that it is easier to heat up a plastic pack of chilli con carne than to make our own, and we will cheerfully serve our families with tubs of coloured goo as desserts rather than give them a fresh apple or banana.

Many such convenience foods are treated with preservatives, colourings and artificial flavourings, none of them nutritionally valuable and many suspect. Conditions such as hyperactivity in children may result from some of these. Many more convenience foods are contaminated with the addition of high levels of sugar and/or other sweeteners, again empty of nutrition and likely to be positively harmful. And many people are uncomfortably aware of this trap and yet uncertain as to how to escape from it.

The Food Combining Lifestyle will help anyone who wants to feed their family with nourishing food, yet needs to watch the cost. All you need do is use only fresh or pure frozen ingredients - nothing pre-packed or processed and refined. In this way, you will know exactly what your family is eating and you will know that they are taking in no harmful additives.

And you will find that the shopping basket which is filled with fresh vegetables and fruit is less expensive than that crammed with packets of ready-cooked convenience meals. Compare the price of a bag of potatoes in the supermarket with a single baked potato from a take-away. Or compare the price of a packet of spaggetti with the much smaller amount in a small tin of the same.

You are no longer paying for flavourings, colourings or packaging, nor for someone else's wages in the factories in which such meals are prepared. You are simply paying for your fresh, wholesome food.

Compare the prices of natural foods with ready-made. Why buy your family cakes, for instance, when a bowl of fruit will cost no more and do them far more good? Why buy meat pies and frozen chips - not a food-combining recommendation anyway - when fresh meat and vegetables will be cheaper and healthier? Why buy fish fingers, smothered in breadcrumbs and colouring, when fish like coley can be bought for less than a pound per pound?


Not only will your family be fitter following this lifestyle, but they will not suffer the between-meal hunger pangs and cravings that they experience on a 'normal' diet. This is because the digestive system is working at its correct pace, with none of the highs and lows of blood-sugar level which are part of the pattern of 'convenience food' eating, and the food is taking longer to pass through. Our bodies are more satisfied on the Food Combining Lifestyle and such snacks as cakes, biscuit, crisps and chocolate bars are no longer wanted. If you have not eaten enough at one meal to satisfy you until the next, you can sustain your body with a snack of a few nuts or some fresh or dried fruit.

Snacks like cakes, biscuits, crisps and chocolate bars are amongst the most expensive items, and the most unhealthy items, in many western diets, yet there are few people, even those on the lowest of incomes, who do without them. Leave them out of your shopping basket and you will have more money to buy the more nutritious vegetables and fruit which are recommended as a large part of the Food Combining Lifestyle.

http://www.peter-thomson.co.uk/foodc/why_food_combining_is_not_expensive.html

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Many people say they rely on convenience foods because they have no time to prepare fresh foods, and it is true that the pace of life is faster nowadays. But in fact, cooking fresh vegetables and preparing fresh fruit often takes up less of our time than preparing so called convenience foods.

We probably have more time now than any of our ancestors have ever had. We work shorter hours - it is not so many years since a twelve-hour day was the norm - and we spend much more time on leisure pursuits, many of them, such as watching television, in our own homes.

Preparing our own meals is a satisfying and relaxing activity which can be shared by all members of the family. Children can help, especially with such tasks as shelling peas and beans, or scrubbing the skins of potatoes. And there are a great many meals which can be quickly prepared and then left to cook themselves. You will find many such recipes in this book.

Many people on low incomes have decided that their children need a parent at home or have more time because of their unemployment. For these, the Food Combining Lifestyle makes ideal use of their time, and is an excellent way to feed their families cheaply, nutritiously and healthily. Kitchen appliances, such as a pressure cooker and microwave oven, will help save money in the cooking, so these methods are recommended, but all the recipes can be used by those who do not have such appliances.

Time need be no bar to following the Food Combining Lifestyle, and it will have the great benefit of keeping you and your family fitter and more healthy. And this, in turn, will save time. Why spend your life suffering from minor - and major - ailments when you don't have to?

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Every meal you enjoy that follows this lifestyle helps to keep you fit and healthy, but you don't have to follow it like a slave.

You don't have to count calories - unless you want to.

You don't have to understand the history of the diet, although it makes a fascinating story.

You don't have to understand modern science, to discover how today's doctors and research scientists are finding that this lifestyle, based on traditional ways of eating, is better than many of their expensive pills and potions at fighting cancer, heart disease, digestive disorders and many other ailments of our modern society.

You don't have to give up any of the food ingredients that you like - although you may find yourself eating them at different meals.

When you eat out, follow your lifestyle if you can, but it doesn't matter occasionally if you don't.

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Don't mix starch foods with protein foods at the same meal.

Food Combining is the healthy diet for the 21st century.

Food Combining assumes that people should be mentally alert, physically fit, able to cope with stress and resistant to disease. It expects that this should be the natural state, without the intervention of the doctor or medicines.

Food Combining is a diet based on the observations and experience of people in the real world, not an attempt to force people into the straightjacket of untested theory. A long-term study of diet-related disease coordinated by the Institute of Nutrition in Rome identified the people of the village of Celso, on its hilltop, as those least likely to die of diet related disease. Most of their meals are based on home-made pasta, bread, soup, fruit, vegetables and olive oil, and include a glass of red wine. Protein is not normally eaten with their starch and vegetable based meals.

The scientific explanation of why Food Combining works starts with the real world. It starts with the observation that it is a diet that works! The scientist are slowly starting to explain just why food combining is such a successful diet.

There is only one way to put food combining to the test - try it!

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A protein meal of meat, cheese or eggs, is broken up by the teeth and passed down to the stomach. In response to the arrival of the protein, the stomach lining produces a strong acid, and enzymes which digest protein in acid solution, and a thick sticky mucus to protect the lining of the stomach from attack by its own enzymes. These enzymes snip the long protein molecules in our food into shorter chains and then into individual amino acids.

A meal of protein may take several hours for complete digestion before passing on into the small intestine. Here the stomach acid is neutralised by bile salts from the liver. The pancreas now adds further protein digesting enzymes to complete the digestion of protein and the soup of amino acids is now absorbed through the villi that line the small intestine and are passed on into the blood stream.

A meal of starch is partly digested in the mouth where chewing mixes enzymes in the alkaline saliva with the food. The starch molecule is split into sugar molecules. A starch meal does not stimulate the stomach to produce acid, or protein digesting enzymes, and the food is passed on to the small intestine within an hour. In the small intestine, further enzymes are added in an alkaline solution that complete the breakdown of starches into sugars. These are also absorbed through the villi that line the small intestine and pass into the blood stream.

This system only works efficiently if starch and protein appear as separate meals. The food combining lifestyle puts this scientific knowledge into practice.

If starch is mixed with protein, the enzymes in the stomach are diluted and the stomach feels full for longer because digestion of protein is inefficient. Acid is being produced for every mixed meal, which puts the stomach under stress. The acid has to be neutralised by the bile salts for every meal, which puts the small intestine under stress.

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Whole grain cereals contain starch with a little protein. They are digested comparatively slowly, but efficiently by the starch digestion process, but there are enough protein digesting enzymes in the small intestine to ensure the proteins as well as the starches are digested. The sugars that result from the digestion of starch are absorbed by the villi, and passed into the bloodstream for several hours. The liver is able to convert sugars not immediately required into glycogen for storage. If more sugar is absorbed than can be converted into glycogen, the surplus will be changed into fat.

White flour is almost pure starch. It mixes easily with saliva in the mouth and breaks down rapidly into sugars. As soon as the digested starch reaches the small intestine, a huge surge of sugars passes into the bloodstream. Insulin is produced rapidly to control it and the liver is put under stress to process the surplus. The body works flat out to remove the surplus from the bloodstream, and usually overshoots, leaving the bloodstream with too low sugar levels, and the person feeling tired and lacking in energy. These fluctuating blood sugar levels can put the body under too much stress and the system controlling blood sugar starts to break down. The result can be diabetes.

Refined sugar is even worse because it requires no further digestion but enters the bloodstream in a dangerous surge.

Dr Hay was critical of potatoes in the diet because their starch is easily digested, but they are a useful source of starch and vitamin C. The skins of potatoes should be eaten as most vitamins and minerals are close to the surface and would be removed by peeling.

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Borage seed oil ( starflower oil ) is high in Gamma Linolenic Acid. Its anti inflammatory properties helps reduce swelling and tenderness of joints in rheumatoid arthritis. It has higher levels of this acid than evening primrose oil.

Cranberry juice can help protect against all types of urinary infections according to researchers at Boston USA.

Garlic has strong antibiotic properties.

Don't go on a calorie reduced diet to slim without taking plenty of exercise. Without the exercise you lose muscle, not fat. You'll end up weak and fat!

Red wine in moderation is good for older people only! A lot still damages your liver. For younger people the risks of developing liver cancer outweigh the health benefits of a glass of wine.

Suffer from mouth ulcers? You may be short of B vitamins, particularly thiamine, riboflavin and B6.

Women who suffer prolonged or heavy periods are likely to develop an iron deficiency.

Women who have premenstrual syndrome may lack vitamins B and C.

Vegetarians may develop iron deficiency.

Convenience foods are often low in vitamin B and magnesium.

If you don't eat fresh fruit and vegetables every day you may lack vitamin C, magnesium and potassium.

Heavy smokers need a much higher intake of vitamin C for good health.

Older people need to increase their intake of vitamin B, calcium, potassium and iron.

Are you tired all the time? Researchers at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge think low levels of folic acid might be part of the cause

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Our family and friends always sit down to a food combining meal, but often they will not realise that we have separated the starch from the protein. The secret is a good variety of fruit and vegetables, and a selection of sauces to accompany them.

I am a firm believer in the family sitting down for a meal together. It is part of the cement that forms a family and holds it together. It gives everyone a sense of belonging and security and identity.

There should be enough variety in a meal so that the genuine likes and dislikes of family members can be tolerated, but no-one should demand a meal of their own.

At a starch meal there is always a surplus of bread, rice or potatoes for anyone who is really hungry, but for protein meals we ensure there is a surplus of vegetables. We don't allow younger members of the family to raid the food cupboard if they take a dislike to what has been served. If they don't like a meal they will stay hungry to the next.

The pressure of constant advertising of unhealthy foods can be difficult to resist, but we find that our children find much of those foods too sweet or too salt, and prefer our own cooking.

We make a lot of use of the pressure cooker to create stocks and soups and to reduce the time that we spend in the kitchen. But if a meal is needed and we are short of time, it will be bread and salad and a bowl of fruit.

Make sure that your kitchen is a safe environment for the family and start them helping to prepare family meals as soon as they are old enough to stand.

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FreeWoman77 said:

thanks for links, yea, I know some, and others I'm interested

since my way of eating and my weight and height on graphic shown healthy so I will remain same what I have been eating and knowing to do my use, but time and age (after period stopped at age of 45 to 55) may be changed I will try other

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