The Candida Connection

There are both good and bad bacteria throughout your digestive system.
The balance btween these systems is important to our health.   When the balance
is tilted toward the bad bacteria, health suffers. Candida is one of these bad bacteria
when it is out of balance.  Candida is a tiny yeast that inhabits our intestinal tract. Because of anti-biotics and an over-abundance of sugar in the standard American diet, Candida overgrowth has become a common malady, often unrecognized and undiagnosed.

“Candia itself produces toxins that some people seem extremely sensitive to. Imbalances in our digestive flora are tied to all sorts of diseases, from heart disease, arthritis, autoimmune diseases and more.”
-quoted from one of my favorite health blogs on the net: Read the rest of Dr. Scott Olson’s informative article on candida at http://olsonnd.com/sugar-and-candida

Further Food-Combining Adventures

The basic premise of proper food combining is that when foods are combined correctly, the absorb properly during digestion and they digest efficiently. When foods are combined incorrectly, they can’t be absorbed during digestion. Weight gain is very often a result of improper eating rather than of too many calories.

Proper food combining is based on the chemistry of digestion - simple physiological formulas. For example when you combine starches with proteins (like meat with potatoes) they each conflict with the digestion of the other, causing digestion to slow, and even not properly to occur.

We are told about all of these new digestive disorders that now have names “IBS” “Acid Reflux.” I just don’t believe in them. My guess is that maybe 1% have the actual disorder as doctors are defining it. But I have known people personally and there are thousands on the web that have cured these “disorders” or “diseases” by changing their diets. For people who suffer from gas, indigestion, acid stomach, constipation, diarrhea, cramping, bad breath, proper food combining is one of these simple approaches that can cause huge transformations.

Today’s food combining lesson: don’t combine starches with proteins. They digest differently, each causing the other to digest more slowly and improperly. This contributes to afore mentioned problems like bloating, indigestion, weight gain, and many more problems.

Avoid combinations like meat and potatoes, chicken and rice. Eat veggies with your meats: lots of them. If you have steamed veggies, put them in a bowl (after cooking) and toss with a little extra virgin olive oil and good quality natural salt and pepper. If you eat sandwiches, stick to vegetable only sandwiches like avocado and sprouts, portabello mushroom with roasted peppers. Stuff like that.

For a complete chart of food combining dos and don’ts check out http://www.thewolfeclinic.com/foodcombining.html

An Apple A Day

Many people suffer from digestive problems and spend a lot of money on various forms of relief to varying effect. Personally I don’t believe in “IBS” (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) It wasn’t around when I was a kid. I think IBS refers to a number of digestive problems - from bad diet, to bad food combining, to parasites.

In this post I will begin addressing the issue of combining food. It is not that complicated, but I have decided to write about it in a few different installments so that readers can assimilate a little at a time. I truly believe that more people would make fundamental changes in their diets, lives, worlds, if they didn’t think they had to do it all at once. It is so easy to become overwhelmed these days.

So start with FRUIT!

Fruit digests much more quickly than other foods. The manner in which fruit digests is inhibiting to proteins and starches. Also the fact that it digests quickly means, my dears, that it starts to putrify while it is waiting for the heavier foods to get their digestion over with. One important specification: Melon - eat it alone or else leave it alone.

The best way to eat fruits are 30 minutes (or closer to an hour if you eat a lot) before a meal, or three hours after a meal. Some people like to have fruit for breakfast. In the world of yin and yang, fruit is considered very yin, or cooling. For many people it is too cooling for morning, except perhaps in summer.

There are exceptions to this, but it all gets confusing and there is disagreement about them. I think it is better to start here and keep it simple.

If you are hankering for more info on food combining right away, go to: http://www.thewolfeclinic.com/foodcombining.html Otherwise, see you next time!