It's Eric Bakker, naturopath from New Zealand.
Always good to see you back again checking out the videos.
I'm going to talk about food combining today, something that I've looked at up and down
inside and out so many times now.
I've looked at many books on it.
I've talked to many ... spoke to many practitioners about this.
I've worked with of course thousands of patients regarding diets over the years.
So I'll give you my take on it for what it's worth.
You may think it's all ... what I'm about to say is all a load of crap.
But that's up to you.
What I'm about to tell you is based on my experiences.
Not from what I've read online, or not from some scientific studies or things like this,
but my experiences.
And that's what this channel often will be about.
Many people may find me a bit of an idiot for coming up with my own personal views.
But I can assure you they're based on a lot of reading I've done over the years, a lot
of consulting with people.
But more importantly, working with many, many, many, many thousands of people who've confirmed
or denied whether a treatment plan that I put forward was going to be any good.
Of course, after a period of time, you start developing your own theories.
Well, I think food combining is a load of crap.
I really do.
I mean, honest to god.
Think about it for a minute.
You can't combine proteins and starches.
You can't combine acidic foods with non-acidic foods.
You can't have meats with fruits for example.
I mean all these flipping rules.
I'm sick of rules up to here.
We get enough rules already.
But the food police have been around for a long time now for hundreds of years the food
police.
I look at some of my older books.
I've got some wonderful books here.
Look at this one here, How to Cure Everything.
This is a book from the 1800s.
The Botanic Guide to Modern Health, 1916, really good book.
Now they're basically going to tell you to boil beef and have potatoes boiled up with
beef and all sorts of different food combinations.
Other older books I look at have a very strict exclusion of certain types of foods.
About a hundred years ago a book was written I think by a guy called Dr. Hay, quite an
impressive one regarding different foods on in the groups of foods and how to eat certain
foods at certain times of the day, and what to combine, not to combine.
People love a plan.
They like rigidity.
They like a format.
Patients often say to me, "I need to know exactly what to eat, how many grams of protein
to eat every day.
Do I eat two ounces of chicken or 1.46 ounces of chicken?
And if I do eat it, how many grams of salt can I put on the chicken and how many times
do I stir it clockwise before I stir it anti-clockwise?"
That's how anal some people are.
It's just ridiculous.
But food combining has got zero basis really in fact.
If you look at most foods, many foods in fact will contain elements of protein, fats, and
carbs in that food.
So what do you do?
Separate the food?
Many people like for example in different countries have eaten fruits combined with
meats for thousands of years.
If you look at pineapple for example and pork, if you look at mangoes or pineapples or tropical
fruits are often cooked alongside the chicken or pork or meats like that.
So culturally people have broken this rule for centuries basically.
Ayurvedic medicine also put forward an idea on food combining.
Many different I suppose belief systems have over a period of time.
But to me food combining is a little bit like a religion, like a belief system.
It's easy for you to be pushed into a church and to believe a particular type of eating
pattern.
There are many different types of belief systems out there when it comes to God, but there
is a creator.
There can be no denial of some type of creator.
But to say that this is the creator and all the rest are crap, I mean, you've just incriminated
yourself.
You can't do that.
Just like there are many ways of eating foods, but to say that food combining is the way,
it's the path to take and all the other paths are no good, it's a personal choice for you
what you decide to eat and how you decide to combine foods.
Most all of my patients, when they've got a great functioning digestive system like
me, can eat just about any combination.
But common sense prevails.
You're not going to have a bowl of Cheerios with a can of Coke in the morning.
I mean that's not really a good combination, is it?
You're probably better off really having some eggs or some cereal of some sort.
But then people say, "Oh, but you can't put milk with your cereal.
You've got to have dairy on an empty stomach."
I mean hello.
Is this the sergeant of the food police or the corporal or who is this?
I mean, be careful when people lay down the law when it comes to food.
You need to have your own gut instinct literally when it comes to eating and work out what
combinations work well for you.
Fruits combine perfectly well with many different meals for example, but many people won't take
it that far.
I've successfully cooked apples and bananas and different foods in with meals and had
very tasty meals and had no bowel problems or bloating or gas or anything as a result
of that.
You need to experiment for yourself to see what you like to eat and in what combinations.
Some combinations that you're going to try may not suit you, but it may also be the time
of day you're having that combination.
So just be careful not to fall into the trap of reading books on food combining and anally
following your diet down to that degree where you can't eat this with this and you can't
eat that with that.
To me it's like the GAPS diet, very strict exclusions, very tightly controlled eating
patterns.
It's not going to work for you long-term.
It may work for a few weeks, but how many people like to live under a military dietary
regime for years and years?
You might as well go and live in North Korea.
Come on people.
Wake up.
There's always someone out there who wants to pull wool over your eyes.
Food combining, there's a lot of wool pulling in my opinion.
You make up your own mind.
Thanks for tuning in.