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Food Combining Rules Revised?

One of my absolute favorite raw food blogs is Frederic Patenaude Talks.  Frederic has been in the low fat raw food field for over ten years now.  His vast knowledge regarding health and fitness has always been a huge inspiration for me.

And as I’ve mentioned before, The Raw Secrets was actually the book that convinced me to go raw.

Needless to say, I rarely ever disagree with the information that Frederic posts on his blog and sends to his list.  My reaction usually ranges from “Yeah, I know!” to “That’s so true!”

However, I was a bit surprised by his article on food combining posted a couple of weeks ago.  Click here to read the article.

Reading the title “Rethinking Food Combining Rules on the Raw Foods Diet,” I figured that it would be sort of an expose on how superfluous the majority of food combining rules are and how the “no fruit and fat” rule is the only one that really matters.

Then I read the first few lines:

“The other day I was eating a delicious salad made with the following ingredients:

- Crisp romaine lettuce
– Sweet and ripe raw corn
– Garden-ripen tomatoes
– Diced mango
– Small amount of avocado
– Fresh herbs picked from the garden
– Lemon juice

I can’t express how delicious this salad was. It was truly amazing! And part of the reason why it was so good is because it was made with fresh and ripe ingredients.”

Wait a minute.

I must be seeing things.

Is that mango…and avocado…in the same dish?

Sweet fruit AND fat?!?

Blasphemy!

According to Fred, the combination of small amounts of fat with sweet fruit is perfectly acceptable.  The key is “small amounts” of fat, (i.e. 1/2 an avocado or 1-2 tbsp of nuts).

He’s not talking about the fatty-fruity raw desserts that you see in restaurants and fancy “un-cook” books.  You will definitely experience tummy trouble after a small serving of one of these.

So what led Frederic to this conclusion?

Over the years, I’ve watched some other raw-foodists eat who didn’t know these food combining rules.

She simply made combinations she liked that tasted good, without paying too much attention to the combinations like I did.

My big surprise was to realize that I could eat many combinations that I thought were “bad” without any negative effect whatsoever.

The main combination I’m talking about has to do with mixing fat and sugar together.

I have read a few accounts like this on raw forums.  Usually these raw foodists have been raw for many, many years (like, before the internet and the raw food combining craze) and so they never came into contact with these rules.  They usually intuitively eat very simple dishes and sometimes this includes the combination of some fat and fruit.

Frederic continues with another reason why the fruit-fat combo is not so abominable, which I found very insightful.

Many foods in nature contain the combination of fat and sugar in significant proportions!

For example, the durian, a beloved fruit of many raw-foodists, is very rich in sugar and quite rich in fat (20% on average).

Even avocados contain some sugar and carbohydrates, and so do nuts.

And surprisingly, all fruits and vegetables contain a certain percentage of fatty acids.

There are also other fruits in nature that contain this forbidden mixture of fat and sugar, such as the “Ackee fruit”, popular in Jamaica.

So it seems to me a little strange to completely ban this combination, when you can enjoy a ripe durian which contains a mixture of fat and sugar.

I never thought of that before!  I knew that the durian was higher in fat, but I never made the fruit and fat connection.  I guess this goes to show that we can easily become so entrenched in our beliefs that we forget to question why we hold them in the first place!

Fruit and Fat…Okay?

So (as per usual), I have to agree with Frederic.  As long as you eat fatty foods in a very limited quantity, you will likely be able to safely consume them with sweet fruits.

For instance, there have been times in which I have eaten an acceptable amount of avocado soon after a fruit meal with no digestive upset at all.

No bloating.  No gas.  No gurgly tummy.

With that said, I do not have the same success with raw nuts and seeds.  If I consume nuts after a fruit meal, I always have trouble.  Even raw nuts on their own do not digest too well for me.

I believe this is mostly because the nuts I eat are dehydrated and not truly raw nor fresh.  This means they will take longer to digest as opposed to a raw, ripe avocado.  It is possible that if I had fresh, tree-ripened, nuts and seeds I would have a more favorable experience.

Final Thoughts

I am really glad that Fred published this article.  It can be so easy to become dogmatic in our approach to what we eat (or anything we do, for that matter).  As raw foodists, we are already living the healthiest of all lifestyles.  A little fat and fruit is certainly not going to kill us.  After all, it’s just food!

So if you’ve been dieing to try an avocado and mango salad or similar combination of sweet fruit and fat, I say go for it!

And if the combination doesn’t work for you?  Well, lesson learned.  I mean, no one’s ever died from an upset stomach (I don’t think). 

Just remember to keep the fats to a minimum and be sure to get the majority of your calories from sweet fruit.  You don’t want fatty foods to rival your sweet fruit consumption in anyway.

Never forget, fruit comes first!

About the Author

For more information on the best raw vegan diet, be sure to visit Fit On Raw and subscribe to Swayze’s newsletter Peachy Keen Ezine. By subscribing, you will also receive the free report The 4 Principles of a Healthy Raw Diet as well as the 5-week mini-course The Fool Proof Transition to Raw.

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