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Examination of food combining as a method to improve digestion and comfort after meals, and whether this food philosophy is valid based on scientific research and comparison to traditional diets.
Food combining is a dietary approach that emphasizes eating specific food groups separately to optimize digestion.
This food philosophy has seen periodic waves of interest since the popularity of the Hay Diet from the 1920s and a resurgence in the 1980s with Fit for Life. (1, 2)
Today, broader wellness culture can quickly become amplified by social media, with food combining continuing to fuel interest in restrictive eating patterns, as people seek personalized nutrition solutions.
Innova Market Insights highlights “Precision Wellness” as a current trend, noting consumer demand for tailored nutrition plans, which could indirectly align with food combining’s focus on individualized eating rules. (3)
Research on Food Combining
It is important to realize that the concept of food combining is a theory based on the premise that different foods have different digestive requirements.
Research continues to find no significant benefits for weight loss or health compared to balanced diets. (4)
Scientific studies continue to maintain that the human digestive system is well equipped to handle mixed macronutrients efficiently, debunking claims of “meat clogging the colon” or digestive distress from improper combinations.
Despite this, anecdotal testimonials and influencers, like Kenzie Burke with her “21-Day Reset” program, have kept the concept alive in online spaces. (5)
In addition, food combining plays an important role for the Trim Healthy Mama Diet and cookbook series.
Specific food combinations that are avoided according to this nourishment philosophy are meat proteins and starchy foods (such as grains and potatoes) among others.
Ayurvedic Medicine
I’ve written before about how Ayurvedic cooking was my first foray into traditional diets in the early 1990s.
Ayurvedic medicine teaches that certain foods that are “incompatible” can challenge digestion when paired together. (6)
For example, beans and nuts are heavy, rich proteins that are more challenging for the body to break down.
Thus, Ayurvedic recipes do not pair them together in the same meal so as not to overwhelm digestion.
High enzyme fruits such as melons, however, are very light and easy to digest.
Thus, Ayurvedic cooking suggests eating them alone, otherwise, discomfort such as gas, and bloating could occur if eaten with other foods that require a more robust digestive response.
Crutch for Bad Digestion?
To me, the persistence of food combining in popular culture seems to be related to how most people today have some form of digestive impairment.
In other words, food combining can be used as a crutch to deal with digestive malfunction.
It does not seem coincidental that the Hay Diet in the 1920s…the first modern form of food combining…appears at the very time indigestible and gut damaging processed foods such as packaged snacks (Cracker Jack), mass produced cookies and crackers (Nabisco), and frozen foods (Birdseye) achieved widespread appeal as dietary staples in the American Diet!
Antibiotics came on the scene in 1928 with the discovery of penicillin which further damaged modern digestion.
The result has been the gradual deterioration of gut health to the sorry state it is in today, with very few escaping the wrath from a messed-up microbiome.
Rather than embracing food combining as a valid approach to damage from processed foods and gut-damaging medications, the better way to approach the situation is to heal and seal the gut to resolve microbiome imbalance!
In short, food combining appears to be a band-aid approach (the easy way out) to dealing with compromised digestion.
Instead of food combining, the GAPS Diet is the best protocol to consider that goes to the root of the problem.
Developed by Natasha Campbell-McBride MD, GAPS involves the temporary removal of foods that cannot be completely digested with reintroduction (no food combining!) once healing and sealing of the intestinal wall occurs.
No Food Combining in Traditional Diets!
Other than Ayurvedic medicine, examination of ancestral diets does not reveal food combining as a traditional method that humans embraced for consuming their food for optimal health.
Starches and proteins are regularly consumed together ancestrally across the globe!
In other words, if you have good digestion, go ahead and enjoy a meal of steak and potatoes!
My own primary ancestry from Northern Europe considered sourdough bread and a thick slab of raw cheese to be a preferred lunchtime staple, a meal to provide lasting energy working in the fields until sundown.
It was (and is) not a food combination worthy of an afternoon nap because digestion has ground to a halt as claimed by food combining afficionados.
If food combining had any validity whatsoever, it would be reflected in the dietary patterns of healthy, disease-free societies such as the 14 ancestral cultures written about in the classic Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. (7)
It appears that food combining is one of the many crutches popular in modern culture in response to the devastation of the gut microbiome from widespread dependence on processed foods and the epidemic of pharmaceutical overuse.
(1) The Benefits of the Hay Diet: A Comprehensive Guide
(2) The Fit for Life Diet: A Comprehensive Guide to Eating for Optimal Health
(3) Precision Wellness: How Personalized Nutrition is Reshaping the Food Industry
(4) Similar weight loss with low-energy food combining or balanced diets
(5) Kenzie Burke 21 Day Reset Food
(6) A Beginner’s Guide to Ayurvedic Cooking
(7) Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
I greatly appreciate your articles. Just a note about Trim Healthy Mama, it is not, and never had been about seperating food groups for the sake of digestion. In fact, meals that they call Crossovers, protein and carbs and fats in the same meal, is a part of the plan.
Rather, for those who have difficulty burning through both carbs and fats in the same meal, leading to fat storage, it suggests that some meals go easy on either the fats or the carbs to give the body the chance to burn through it all instead of putting it in storage.
All meals are centered on protein, and include some fat and carbs, heavier on one or the other, but getting a balance of all the macros over the course of the day and week. And they are big on ancestral foods such as sourdough, fermented food, raw milk kefir, etc.
Thanks for sharing your experience with it!
Hi Sarah,
I have been a fan of yours for many years now, well over a decade, and have been eating a traditional diet for about 15 years, thanks to a friend sharing nourishing traditions. About 13-14 years ago, I ended up going on the GAPS diet as it turned out I had leaky gut, adrenal fatigue and reversed cortisol levels and the vegetarian diet my otherwise wonderful chiropractor put me on to resolve these problems did not help. Another friend introduced me to GAPS, and I stayed on it for over two years, even through my second pregnancy and my son’s infancy and have been doing great since. I rarely eat processed food and made everything from scratch the traditional way for years even after gradually coming off of GAPS. I’ll indulge in organic real sourdough bought from local bakers a couple of times a week, usually made w/buckwheat or spelt or rye flour and even sourdough home-made croissants; but I don’t eat standard store-bought processed food. Also we don’t use medication or vaxx as that is how I ended up w/leaky gut in the first place based on the evidence. 😉 Thankfully, I knew better by the time I had kids.
However, I beg to differ on your stance on food combining. I know that when I combine certain foods it takes my digestion for a loop and I get bloated. My nutritionist friends and those who eat an extremely clean, processed-free, whole food diet have confirmed this as well. It is also common, traditional wisdom in this part of the world: central Europe, that you eat fruits on their own. People do make deserts with them, however, they know it isn’t healthy. As you mentioned the enzymes cause it to digest very quickly and combining that with slow digesting proteins or carbs is a recipe for disaster/uncomfortable fermentation in the stomach. A friend who is in excellent health and only eats natural foods said he noticed his stomach got upset whenever he combined nuts with berries, so he doesn’t do so. So, I don’t think we can dismiss food combining guidelines as nonsense outright, just because it doesn’t pose a problem for some people but it does for others. Some people can consume milk-products with no issues, and some of us, even if we have raw, organic A2 type milk, we’ll break out from it. Our body doesn’t like it for whatever reason. Same with gluten. Our traditional Easter meal in Eastern Slovakia has a heck of a lot of odd food combining: cooked ham, pork sausage, meatloaf, stuffing, eggs, homemade “cheese” cooked with eggs and milk and lightly sweetened, grated pickled beets w/horseradish, some people also make potato salad, something akin to chalah bread, and then deserts (ground poppy and walnut rolls and others). It’s a heck of a combination. Two days of eating this, a lot more sparingly than others in the family I may add, as I only require two meals a day to feel nourished now, and today, I had lovely indigestion for half the day and could barely eat anything. Glad it’s only once a year :D. I think there is a reason that in the Jewish tradition you cannot combine meat and milk. It’s “traditional” proof that this is a poor combination digestion-wise. Otherwise, my kids have been growing up on many of your recipes, and I have a very deep appreciation for all you do, and your wonderful tips and advice.
Warmly, Luci
Thanks for sharing your story! The bottom line is that bloating is a symptom of gut imbalance. People with a healthy gut microbiome do not bloat when they eat good food even when in “wrong” combinations like steak and potatoes. Relief with food combining is a band-aid, not a cure and the gut imbalance only gets worse over time if it isn’t addressed. If the GAPS diet didn’t fully work for you, which it appears it did not (you should never be on it while pregnant, by the way), it is possible you started at the wrong phase and only experienced partial heal/sealing of the gut wall. I would suggest consulting with a GAPS Practitioner who can guide you on the best type of GAPS diet (there are several!) and which phase (and when to transition into later phases as you heal).
Those are some really……REALLY good looking pancakes (which just so happen to be my favorite food on the planet).