Eat Alone or Leave Alone

Here it is melon season with all their lusciousness.  But, with any melon, I am always reminded of that phrase, "Eat alone or leave alone."  Don't eat them with anything else if you don't want your digestion to object.  So that means no cantaloupe and yogurt, no watermelon in your salsa ... you get the picture.  And I remember once hearing that Persians consider the mixture of cantaloupe, yogurt, and honey to be highly unpleasant.  I haven't tried it; I'm just passing that tid-bit on.  But, please, no cantaloupe and cucumber ice cream as I saw someone make on a food show.

Apparently high sugar fruits digest very quickly ... or don't even require any digestion.  (So I eat them a half-hour before the rest of my meal.)  But if you combine them with something else, your digestion decides to work on the proteins and carbs, leaving the simple sugars in the stomach to ferment.  So, another hint:  if you're going to eat fruit with other food, eat it at the beginning of the meal, not the end.

I've actually read that it's best not to do a lot of food combining, no matter what.  That seems very inconvenient, no fun, and hard to follow through on.  I mean, there goes the apple pie (fruit and starch), the grilled cheese sandwiches (protein and starch).  Some combos, of course, like rice and lentils do go well together, as the people of India and Nepal have discovered.

Here's a quick link with more particulars.  It's called "10 Common Food Combinations That Wreak Havoc on Your Health."  For instance:  o.j. with your morning cereal, cheese omelets, cucumbers with tomatoes (or any nightshade), your favorite Tex Mex beans with cheese.  Ah, me.  Sometimes it almost seems better not to know.  Click here