Don't Let Food Get Like This in Your Stomach!

Do you need to find a cure for gas, flatulence, heartburn, upset stomach, regurgitation and/or diarrhea? If so, and you want to eat more and feel better than here is something that probably most of you have never even thought of or looked into. As many of you already know food rots after it sits out too long at a temperature at or above 85 degrees. When food rots, it smells and looks horrible. Now, imagine yourself eating the rotted food and putting it in your body. Sound appealing? The truth is this is exactly what we are doing.

When food is improperly combined or overeaten, this rotting or fermentation is what happens to food that remains undigested in our stomachs. Our stomach has a temperature of 104-106 degrees during digestion. If food is not easily digestible, the food remains in our stomachs to rot causing the body to go through a state of shock. During this state of shock, our body tries to get rid of the unwanted matter by discharging more chemicals into the stomach. The symptoms that may occur due to these chemicals are: gas, flatulence, heartburn, upset stomach, regurgitation and diarrhea. In order to cure these symptoms you must follow these seven rules for food combining when you eat. If you do, you can eliminate all the above mentioned symptoms with great results.

The 7 rules of food combining are:

1. Proteins and starches should not be eaten together
   Sorry all of you steak and potatoes people, it simply just is not good to to mix proteins and starches. Sadly, many of us do this and have become accustomed to this at every meal. This is a fast track to disease. There is no way this combination will digest properly. Take, for example, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs for instance–the meat is a protein and the bread is a starch. It takes a series of acid digestive juices to digest the protein (pepsin, hydrochloric acid), and a series of alkaline digestive juices to digest the starch (ptyalin, maltase). When proteins and starches are combined, their digestive juices neutralize each other and digestion comes to a halt. And when food doesn’t digest, it rots. Don’t believe me? Go eat a hamburger, hot dog, or pizza and tell me what results you get with how you feel.
2. Fruits should not be eaten with starches
   The digestion of fruits requires hardly any time at all in the mouth and stomach, while starches require most of their digestion in those areas. The fruit sugars are quickly absorbed into the intestines, while the starch requires chemical and mechanical digestion in the mouth and stomach. Incidentally, starch is the only food that begins to digest in the mouth with the enzyme Ptyalin. When sugar, for which no Ptyalin is required, is combined with starch, the mouth fills with saliva and the signals get jumbled; impaired digestion is the result. If the fruit sugars are held up in the stomach awaiting the digestion of starch, fermentation is inevitable. The rule of thumb when eating fruit is to eat fruit as a fruit meal. This gives a new perspective to some of the old favorite combinations – the raisin bran products, fruit preserves on toast, bananas on cereal, carrot slaw with raisins. Oranges with rice is a bad combination that is easy to identify and doesn’t even sound good.
3. Fruits should not be eaten with proteins
   Here, too, the fruit sugars are absorbed directly into the intestines and the protein requires much time digesting in the stomach. If the sugars are held back in the stomach while the protein is digesting, fermentation will result. The only exception to this rule is the avocado, which combines well with acid and sub-acid fruits. There is enough oil in seeds and nuts to prolong the protein digestive gastric juices in the stomach, while the fruit sugars of acid fruits are absorbed into the intestines.
4. Fruits and vegetables should not be eaten together
   When these are combined, the digestion of the fruit is delayed and fermentation again occurs. Lettuce and celery are exceptions and may be combined with any fruit except melon. Tomatoes are a fruit and an exception to the rule, also. You can have tomatoes with the following vegetables – lettuce, celery, okra, cucumbers, eggplant, bell peppers and summer squash. Melons should be eaten alone or left alone!
5. Combine melons with NO OTHER FOOD
   They are in their simplest form and require no digestion time at all in the stomach. If they are held back in the stomach while something else is being digested, again, fermentation will take place. Put a piece of melon outside in the sun at 80-90 degrees and see how quickly it decomposes. It’s no wonder that melons bother so many people. They eat them before, with, or directly after a meal. There is NO EXCEPTION TO THIS RULE. Eat melons alone or leave them alone.
6. Acid and sweet fruits should not be eaten together
   These two food groups definitely should not be combined. Banana and grapefruit, oranges and raisins, tangerines and prunes don’t even sound like good combinations, do they? NO EXCEPTION TO THIS RULE!
7. Do not mix more than 4 to 6 fruits or vegetables at a meal
   The simpler the meal, the better you feel. Benjamin Franklin made the following observations regarding the eating habits of his time, showing that things haven’t changed much:

• “I’ve seen few die of hunger, but 100,000 of overeating.”
• “There’s more that die from the platter than from the sword!”
• “When feasts are spread, the doctor rolls his pills, and in 50 dishes lie a hundred ills.”

I now you may be thinking, that is way too much information to remember. But if you post this on your refrigerator or somewhere you will always see it you will eventually get into the habit of always doing the right thing. I promise your body will be thanking you and then you will be thanking me : ) Think health. When you have it, you have everything. When you don’t, nothing else matters.

For more information on proper food combining and much more, please go to The Mango Man Diet website.