Food combining and guidelines

The way we eat affects how we digest our food. How we digest impacts upon our overall health. The Ayurvedic approach to food is all about optimising our agni or digestive fire. This includes timings and size of meals plus combinations of foods eaten together. When we don’t digest fully we accumulate toxins (ama) and this leads to disease. I encountered food combining a few years before I even practices Ayurveda, specifically not mixing fruit with other foods. For me this immediately resulted was less gas and bloating, more energy and weight loss. 

Improper food combinations are a significant cause of ill health and can lead to weak digestion,  accumulation of toxins, and eventually disease. There are recommended ways to combine foods to prevent this toxin build up and to improved digestion and therefore absorption of nutrients and our overall health. 

Foods are categorised based on their energy, either heating (Ushna) or cooling (Shita). This concept goes beyond the physical temperature of food (although it is also important that it is cooked and never cold), relating to the effect it has on the body post-consumption. For instance, hot spicy foods are considered heating, while dairy products tend to be cooling. The post digestive effect is known as the Vipaka. 

Food is at the heart of the Ayurvedic approach and so, for me, these guidelines are non negotiable if this is what you choose to focus upon. They can be life and health changing in a big way. In addition I am big on eating seasonal and local foods. For example if we eat tropical fruit (mango, banana, avocado) in a cold damp climate this will further increase the cold and damp in our body to cause illness. Nature is very clever and has designed these foods to work with the human body and the climate they grown in. Similarly if we eat for example pumpkin in the autumn in the UK, this gives us the warmth and energy needed in the change of season and cooler weather. 

Let’s look at the individual foods groups and recommendations.

Fruit – Always to be eaten alone with NO other foods whatsoever. An exception this this is black raisins and dates, this is due to their post digestive effect, they are, in moderation, considered medicinal. 

Vegetables – generally OK with most foods. Avoid eating raw and cooked veggies together.

Eggs – Not with beans, cheese, fish, milk, meat or yoghurt.

Honey – not with equal amounts of ghee (unlikely to happen as this would be a lot) and do not heat or cook honey as it becomes toxic and indigestible.

Yoghurt – Not with milk, eggs, fish, meat, cheese and nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, white potatoes, aubergines).

Nightshades – Not with dairy or cucumber, avoid completely if you have any inflammation.

Lemon – Not with cucumber, tomatoes, milk, yoghurt.

The six tastes (see my previous post) are present at various stages of the digestive process. We need all six tastes during the course of the day to feel satiated and balanced from our food. It is also a way of ensuring we have a good variety of foods with all the required nutrients. Interestingly the pre and post digestive affect approach is also applied to medicinal herbs. 

When we eat any food it has an initial taste. Once it gets digested in the intestines this taste and therefore the effect of the food upon our constitution can change. This is what is known as the Vipaka or post digestive effect. The end state or effect from a food can sometimes be different to our initial experience of tasting and eating it. This will in turn affect our body functions and dosha balance. Ayurveda has studied this for thousands of years and all the recommendations you see, as well as the herbal medicine it uses, are based upon these principles. There are varying views and ways of describing what is, in its entirely, the complete process of digestion, that is the conversion from food into body cells and tissues. Put very simply, food is viewed in this energetic way and some energetics do not fit well together, for example too much creamy dairy with the protein of fish and meat. Or the heavy effect of yoghurt with light and fermenting fruit. 

To summarise –

View your food energetically and stick with advised food combinations.

Food should never be cold or raw, cooked and warm is much easier to digest.

Same with drinks, no ice, warm drinks are much more easily absorbed and hydrating for the body. 

Avoid lots of liquid with meals, your food needs to contain enough liquid and not be dry so you can easily macerate and swallow. 

Eat ‘right ‘for your dosha and for the season. Local and seasonal food generally works best. Nature knows what it’s doing. 

Notice if specific foods aggravate you, for example onions or garlic, and avoid or reduce these significantly.

Use gentle spices when cooking to aid digestion, cumin, coriander, fennel, turmeric.

Eat at the recommended meal times, main meal middle of the day and a lighter supper around 6pm.

Consider a seasonal dietary cleanse spring and autumn to shift any accumulated toxins.