Paul Pitchford’s Food Combining Theory
Special thanks goes out to both my sisters for this post. My older one suggested reading Paul Pitchford’s Healing with Whole Foods and my younger one bought it for me for Christmas. In a recent post I thought I was onto a winning streak by following the advice in Eating for IBS. I was also clear I had my concerns about it. Pitchford’s book reinforced those concerns and steered me away from solving my issues with soluble fibre.
So now, after what feels like the gazillion books I’ve read to try and find a method that suits me and is a healthy, long-term solution, I’m back to food combining. Man, I feel like such a yo-yo dieter! I’m only in week one so I can’t tell you how it’s working yet (I have to try it for at least 6-8 weeks) but it’s not the only piece of Pitchford’s advice I’m following. He also discusses eating for your ‘type’. I was particularly interested in the cold vs. heat section.
I’m such a coldy. Cold feet, cold hands, always cold, cold, cold. Whereas my boyfriend is most definitely a hot person. My tummy has shown me too much raw food doesn’t agree with me, and part of this may be because I’m a cold person who needs to eat more warming foods (usually things that take longer to grow, such as root vegetables).
I’ve dabbled with food combining before, but was only following loose advice. If you have serious digestive issues, which I do, Pitchford suggests a strict regime. Following the chart above, you should only combine foods directly connected by arrows. In addition, I should only have one type of protein per protein meal, one type of starch per starch meal, and one type of fat in either of those meals. It’s very hard to get my head around as I know it goes against many food combinations we’re used to. Think eggs on toast (protein on starch), salmon sushi (protein in starch), nuts in cereal (protein with starch).
I was particularly interested to learn about fruit combinations. Don’t mix acid fruits with sweet fruits (eg. kiwifruit with banana). Note that tomato is also considered an acid fruit. The exception is that these fruits pair well with lettuce and celery, so a lettuce and tomato salad is still okay.
So the next series of meals I post will either be starch or protein based, but not both. Those with stronger GI tracts than me can throw some lentils into my starch-based meals or some potatoes alongside the protein. And one day, after all this to-ing and fro-ing, I’ll hit this nail on the head!
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