Perfect Pairs
Pasta and Red Bell Peppers – Increased Energy: One cup of cooked pasta can provide you with about 10% of your daily requirement of iron. However, the iron from plant foods like grains, beans, and vegetables does not readily absorb in the intestines. Red bell peppers, which are rich in vitamin-C, help convert the iron into a form that is easier to absorb when added to your pasta. This extra iron will give you a boost of extra energy, as iron helps to carry oxygen efficiently throughout the body and to the brain.
Other tasty vitamin-C and iron combinations include spinach salad with lime juice or kale with lemon juice.
Brown Rice and Peas – Metabolic Boost: Many plant foods, including rice, are rich in protein. However, when eaten alone, they often lack the amino acids essential to create a complete protein. For brown rice, the amino acid lacking is lysine, which can be found in high concentration in peas. Combining the two provides a beneficial protein boost, which stimulates the metabolism and helps you to maintain lean muscle.
Broccoli and Tomatoes – Cancer Fighter: The antioxidants found in tomatoes, when combined with broccoli’s phyto-chemicals (plant chemicals thought to have anticancer properties), form a powerful cancer-cell fighting team.
Tomatoes & Avocados – Healthy Heart: Tomatoes are rich in lycopene, a pigment-rich antioxidant known as a carotenoid, which reduces cancer risk and cardiovascular disease. Fats make carotenoids more easily utilized by the body, giving you a great reason to add tomatoes to your guacamole.
All Three B Vitamins – Protection from Stroke and Alzheimer’s: When consumed together, the three major B vitamins (thiamine, B6 and B12) help in reducing high levels of amino acids which can damage artery lining and increase the risk of stroke. Whip up a salad with romaine lettuce, sweet red peppers and parsley – this will provide you your daily dose of B vitamins. B vitamins also protect you from Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular diseases.
Blueberries & Grapes – Antioxidant Team: A study published in the Journal of Nutrition by Rui Hai Liu, Ph.D., from Cornell University’s department of food science, looked at the antioxidant capacity of various fruits individually (apples, oranges, blueberries, grapes) versus the same amount of a mixture of fruits, and found that this mix had a greater antioxidant response.
Turmeric & Black Pepper – Fight Tumors and Inflammation: Turmeric has long been studied for its anticancer properties, anti-inflammatory effects, and tumor-fighting activities known in nutrition-speak as anti-angiogenesis. The active agent in the spice is a plant chemical, or polyphenol, called curcumin. Adding black pepper to turmeric or turmeric-spiced food enhances curcumin’s bioavailability by 1,000 times, due to black pepper’s hot property called piperine.
Incompatible Combinations
Melons and Milk: Melons digest very quickly while milk takes much longer, therefore, this combination can lead to indigestion. You can combine melons with other types of melons, but other than that, it is best to avoid combining them with any other food.
Fruit and Dairy: Similar to the above, fruits digest more rapidly than cheese, milk, and yogurt. If possible, it is best to eat fruit by itself, otherwise fruit digestion can be inhibited by other more complex foods, causing it to move through the digestive tract too slowly which leads to fermentation, gas and bloating.
Nuts and Yogurt: Concentrated proteins require a greater effort from the digestive system, which can deplete one’s energy. Eating a single concentrated protein per meal rather than two will avoid overburdening the digestive system.
Proteins and Starch: Combinations of proteins and starches, such as those found in a grilled cheese or lasagna sandwich, inhibit the salivary digestion of starch. Proteins and starches require different enzymes and acidity levels in order to be digested. When eaten together, your body is only capable of digesting the protein, and the undigested starch undergoes fermentation and decomposition within the system.
Beans and Cheese: This combination is seen quite often in cuisines from North and South America. However, it is also known to be a common irritant for the stomach, though the reason may not be as well-known. Beans and cheese are similarly heavy and difficult to digest, but also have very disparate properties and effects which confuse the system further, leading to indigestion, bloating and gas. In addition, beans can be either heating or cooling, depending on the type, while cheese is almost always heating to the system.
Orange Juice or Coffee with a Bowl of Cereal: The acids found in your morning OJ destroy the enzyme that is needed to digest the starches present in cereal. Additionally, the acidic juice can curdle the milk and create excessive mucous. But don’t reach for a cup of coffee instead! Coffee contains tannins, which block the absorption of iron from plant foods including cereal, bread, and paste.
Bananas and Milk: This combination, while commonly found together, can be even more troublesome than other fruits combined with milk, simply because the qualities of the two foods are so different. Bananas have a heating effect on the body, while milk is cooling. In addition, the sour nature of banana as it breaks down can curdle the milk inside the digestive tract. The combination can also cause congestion, colds, coughs, allergies, hives, and rashes.
Tomato (Nightshades) and Cheese: “Nightshade” is the common name for members of the plant family Solanaceae, which includes bell peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, cayenne peppers, paprika, tobacco, henbane, belladonna, jimson weed and over 2500 other plants. All nightshades contain certain alkaloids which defend them against insects, and these alkaloids can be mildly to fatally toxic to humans, or at their mildest, can cause complicated chemical reactions in the body. As such, nightshades can be difficult to digest even on their own, and combining them with other foods such as cheeses which are heavy and also hard to digest, can easily overburden the digestive system.
A Glass of Wine with Dinner: Consuming any alcohol can prevent you from absorbing nutrients in your meal, particularly vitamin B, zinc and folic acid.
“World Health Day – Healthy Food, Healthy Body” ishafoundation.org Isha USA, 7 April. 2015 Web. 8 April. 2015.
