How important is food combining to your well being?

[muse]

Do you food combine always? Meaning, no nuts with fruits (including dried fruits), for example? I've read quite a few raw foodist leaders say nuts with dried fruits equals mucho abdominal gas.

Or do you feel fine eating a salad after saying, a banana 30 minutes earlier? Or fruit for dessert after raw veg meal?

I find that something like the delicious RP brownies can be reallly tough for me to digest. Or eating fruit after a salad, even three hours later, I am in for a lot of tummy trouble. Even greens in a green smoothie means upset tummy. I can do the only fruit smoothies, no prob, or green juice by itself, but no way on putting those two together. And forget about nuts with anything fruit.

[Veganforlife]

How long have you been raw? That may have something to do with it.
I don't focus on food combining. I do eat my fruits before a heavier meal. I try to use common sense.

[Revvell]

I never consider it except with melons which I "tend" to eat by themselves.

Many people will find when they first start of raw they'll have bloating and gas... I did. Went away after awhile.

As always, if you find something upsetting your digestion, do something that works for you.

Revvell

[muse]

I've only been raw (this time) for two months. I have bloating and gas every day, no matter what I eat or don't eat. I'm 100% raw, fwiw.

I was 100% raw for a year about a decade ago, and then was a raw fruitarian for two years. Same issues then despite months of colonics. Had to food combine with strict adherence if I wanted to fit into my trousers and not have putrid problems.

I'm hoping my bloating and gas resolve themselves soon. Gets old and it is embarrassing, of course.

[rawnora]

It helps to understand the root causes of bloating and gas. Gases are produced in the digestive tract by the bacteria that come along to eat food that cannot be digested (for any reason). Bacteria are just little animals, and when they eat they excrete waste products just like all living creatures. Their waste products are mostly gaseous.

The key is to find out why your body isn't digesting the food you're eating. Poor combining is a common reason, but it's not the only one. If you get gas even when you eat one food at a time, there's clearly something else going on. It could be that you're eating a heavy meal in the evening and then getting up and eating first thing in the morning before the heavy meal has passed out of your digestive tract. The morning meal will then decompose because it's being held up by the undigested evening meal. This happens a lot when transitioning raw fooders eat nutty or very fatty meals in the evening.

It could also be that your digestion is weak because of the abuse that was inflicted on your colon and associated organs by the colonics. Colonics do not aid or speed healing of the intestinal tract, and in fact they severely impede healing if they are used often. Imagine a wound outside your body and how healing might be interrupted if you shot it with a high pressure stream of water just as the torn skin was beginning to mend. Each time you did that, the disturbed skin would have to re-mend itself. That's a pretty exaggerated example but the principle is the same -- more than anything else, irritated or inflamed skin needs rest and quiet. There's an essay on my website with a full explanation, if you're interested. A tired, abused, atrophied digestive tract will not be efficient or effective at processing food, and there is a great likelihood of the food decomposing before it can be digested.

The thing that heals the digestive tract quickest is not eating at all. Not having to process food allows the injured tissues to mend themselves. If you can't fast completely, juice "fasting" (really juice dieting) is not a good option. There are lots of things you can do short of fasting on water only, like trying to limit the variety of foods you're eating, going longer between meals, skipping breakfast, eating less fat, etc. Needless to say, if you're not observing combining rules currently, it might help to try that too.

Best wishes,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

[DavidZaneMason]

The above posts are great - and spot on. For my own experience....after many years of all-raw eating....I found that I prefered to not use my brain and simply eat one thing at a time for maximum digestion. Works for me. Ha! ha! Just another option for you.

-At the bare minimum, the above suggestion to eat faster digesting things (like fruits and juices) before slower things (like fibrous vegetables, nuts, or cooked foods). Just makes sense.

-What do you think?

-David Z. Mason

[RawNnyc]

I'm noticing the same thing, it's like, I wake up in the morning and my stomach is pretty flat.....not like it used to be though, but better. Then as soon as I eat, BALLOON! And I'm noticing it doesn't even have anything to do with food combining for me........I'm eating mono fruit all day long and big salads at night with only one form of fat/protein...usually avocado. No difference......I started on the 13th of Feb. so not quite a month yet.

For those of you who started out like this, how long did it take before you had your normal stomach back? This is really ugly!

Oh, and if I fast for a day on water, I'm happy with my stomach.....but as soon as I start eating again.........it's like, what am I supposed to do? Starve myself???? Eat tinie tiny amounts????? Yeah right! (these days my appetite is not happy with that!)

[Sharon in Colorado]

I do get tooty if I miscombine. Especially if I have eaten a fat, and then eat a banana real quick before heading out to taekwondo. Big mistake. Don't go to a class with gas.

[Tomato]

I'm noticing the same thing, it's like, I wake up in the morning and my stomach is pretty flat.....not like it used to be though, but better. Then as soon as I eat, BALLOON! And I'm noticing it doesn't even have anything to do with food combining for me........I'm eating mono fruit all day long and big salads at night with only one form of fat/protein...usually avocado. No difference......I started on the 13th of Feb. so not quite a month yet.

For those of you who started out like this, how long did it take before you had your normal stomach back? This is really ugly!

Oh, and if I fast for a day on water, I'm happy with my stomach.....but as soon as I start eating again.........it's like, what am I supposed to do? Starve myself???? Eat tinie tiny amounts????? Yeah right! (these days my appetite is not happy with that!)

If you're mono eating and having your salad at night, then I'm guessing that it's simply the bulk of the food that is causing your tummy to expand. I actually think that's normal (as long as you're not experiencing gas). Mine does the same thing... maybe do some crunches or other exercise to help your tummy muscles be stronger through the day? LOL I heard some raw fooders say once that you shouldn't wear jeans and eat fruit. :D True for me. I'm tiny in the morning and bigger at night!

[RawNnyc]

hmmmm.....no I'm very gassy! hahaha and actually today, I keep going to the bathroom with mostly gas and then some, very little, floating "stuff" comes with it........I eat fruit all day long.......but I know if I have salads all day long the same thing will happen........has this happened to anyone in the beginning and it just went away without having to change the diet?

[Tomato]

hmmmm.....no I'm very gassy! hahaha and actually today, I keep going to the bathroom with mostly gas and then some, very little, floating "stuff" comes with it........I eat fruit all day long.......but I know if I have salads all day long the same thing will happen........has this happened to anyone in the beginning and it just went away without having to change the diet?

How many meals a day are you having, and what fruit exactly are you generally eating?

If you're having many meals a day, cutting it down to 2-3 huge meals may help.

Also, making sure you are following proper food combining - melons by themselves, sweet fruits only with other sweet fruits would probably be helpful. Even if you're mono-fruit-eating, if you're eating very frequently and eating different types of fruit very soon after the last, this may cause your problems. Hope this made sense...

[muse]

There's an essay on my website with a full explanation, if you're interested.
www.RawSchool.com

Nora, thank you for your post. I've been reading your website articles for hours, which is why I haven't responded to this thread until now. Wow, wow, wow on your articles - you say a lot of 'controversial' things which contradict most of what I've read here.

Thank you for your website, I'm absolutely riveted reading through it and you've given me so much to think about and incorporate!! Real breakthroughs for me reading your philosophy and knowledge. I'm amazed.:)

As far as the colonics, I haven't done those for years now, but am doing an intestinal cleanse for the next two months. (Dr. Natura brand)