Please, share your insight on fruit combining.
Why not mixed?
My Practice
Eating only one food at a meal is known as a monotrophic meal. Almost all my meals are monotrophic. Sometimes I have monotrofic days or sequenses of days.
I mix fruit very seldom. Normally I keep long pauses between my usual meals, 1-3 hours. But sometimes I can eat fruit one type after another without waiting, they can be partly mixed in the stomach as the result.
I used to make fruit salads now and then, because they could be of insufficient quality to be tasty eaten separately. It happens from time to time that some of the fruit I have are too sweet, and some are too sour to enjoy, then I may balance the taste by mixing them. But I can't remember when was the last time I eat a fruit salad. Sometimes I mixed tomatoes and avocado.
Even on those rare occasions when I taste/eat vegan food I prefer only elements from it. I can eat 5-6 apples or 8-10 juicy oranges in one meal to get satisfied.
Here is my discussion about mono-raw diet on a raw site, but mono-dieting does not seam to be very popular:
http://www.giveittomeraw.com/forum/topics/mono-rawReasons
I feel like microflora in my stomach changes somewhat to adapt to my food and I read that it definitely could be the case. Maybe this adjustment could be the explanation, why I feel good eating the same food for a period of time - only one to three fruit types a day, the same type many days.
Once I was trying to go as deep as I could into biochemistry to explain possible advantage of mono-eating, but could not find enough information to support it, probably due to my poor knowledge in this area. I even published the article (in another language). The only thing I can say is that apparently digestive enzymes can work more efficient if foods are not mixed. But normally they are bound in raw plant cells with another micro-nutrients (metals, vitamins) and the digestion is not influenced dramatically by mixing (one biologist told me that).
Flavor
I like the taste of each fruit as it is - it is perceived like a flavor symphony, and mixing can create a cacophony - discord :)
Mono-eating could be more efficient way to get nutrients out of food and it helps to avoid difficulties with digestion. I really enjoy one fruit at a time more than in mix. I do not understand why raw folks love smoothies so much. I tried making them once or twice for 2-3 of weeks several years ago, various fruit mixes, but wasn't happy and gave my blender away.
The first meal of the day puts a kind of "nutritional mood" for the whole day for me. If I start with some mix (it happens rarely) I tend to be a little confused in my wishes for the day and can eat chaotically, I don't like that.
Mono-days
Sometimes it it only one type of fruit the whole day or even several days (watermelons, melons, apples, grapes, papayas). Mono days help me learn to concentrate on one thing, it is easier that I
thought. I have experimented with eating "mono" one time a day with 2-3 types of fruit, but
even if I gave myself the whole 2 hours for the meal, I didn't feel
quite perfect - maybe it was still too soon to eat them one after
another.
My biggest problem with mono-days is to have exactly right amount of
food of one type I may like to eat. There is most of the time too much
or too little of one fruit type, and I need ether eat something else if I
am out of the fruit of the day, or have to save the rests on the next
day.
Childhood
Triangular plate
I tended to chose one simple type of food at a time since my childhood. Even bread I ate separately. If I were given a normal dish of food I ate varied pieces on my plate one after another. I disliked toughing one type of food by other so much that I was bought my personal plate with divisions (three of them, the plate was triangular :)
Gourmet
Later on in middle teens I developed an interest in combining food and started to eat as many people did, mixing stuff with sophistication - usually in salads and sandwiches, seldom in grains with herbs (I considered myself a herbalist since I was 11). In my family they started to call me a "little gourmet".
By so much interest to tastes' combinations it is easy to overeat, especially if one uses spices, and to feel heavy after, or even have indigestion. And it is easy to forget the difference between appetite and hunger - to be driven to stimulation by food rather than satisfaction. One needs more and more fantasy in new experiments, but in the same time it becomes boring - I think the "art" of food preparation is limited in its nature - you may disagree with me on that :)
So after a couple of years I make everything dramatically simpler and excluded all taste enhancers (sugar, salt, peppers, etc.), but sometimes still used some of them - curcuma, cayenne and few others on occasion.
Davis, C.M. (1928), American Journal of Diseases of Children:
Children seldom consumed more than 2 or 3 of the 10-12 food items presented at each meal. They would often choose the same food for several meals (to the exclusion of other foods), then abandon that food for others.
The same with me: if I like something, I can have it for many days, and then switch to the next item.
Animals
Animals often eat the same food for many days, if they find a good trees of one type, or in a season on particular fruit ripening. Some animals eat nearly the same the whole life (koala as an example of a mammal).
Trophology
- a branch of science dealing with nutrition
After reading something on proper food combining principles long time ago I started to simplify my food even further. By this teaching, "starchy foods" (like bananas and corn) require an alkaline digestive medium, and "protein foods" (like nuts) - an acid one. It is advised to eat them separately, because they neutralize each other and it causes indigestion. The rules for combining foods applying only to the concentrated starches, sugars, fats and proteins. Fats impede the secretion of digestive juices.
Daniel Reid, The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity:
"Correctly combining foods makes all the difference in the world to proper digestion and metabolism. Without complete digestion, the nutrients in even the most wholesome food cannot be fully extracted and assimilated by the body. ".
Actually, people noticed that some foods do not digested well together long ago.
Chia Ming, Essential Knowledge for Eating and Drinking, 1368 AD:
Food and drink are relied upon to nurture life. But if one does not know that the nature of substances may be opposed to each other, and one consumes them altogether indiscriminately, the vital organs will be thrown out of harmony and disastrous consequences will soon arise. Therefore, those who wish to nurture their lives must carefully avoid doing such damage to themselves.
