What I Ate Wednesday: Food Combining

My naturopath recently recommended I try food combining to see if I feel any different afterwards.

What is food combining you ask?

Good question. I have no idea.

My naturopath is going to send me over some information, don’t worry – she’s not going to send me off blindly into the world of food combining. We’re going to start it in a little while, so I don’t need to know the details just yet.

But…I went to the next best expert – Wikipedia, of course – and did some searching. Here’s Wikipedia’s food combining chart:

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_combining

Wikipedia says: “Food combining (also known as trophology) is a term for a nutritional approach that advocates specific combinations of foods as central to good health and weight loss (such as not mixing carbohydrate-rich foods and protein-rich foods in the same meal).”

I really like the word “trophology”. I think I’m going to go around dropping that into conversation this week.

I’m not entirely sure what it means yet, so I will hold off until I hear from the professional before giving it a try. However, it made me interested to see how I combine my foods at present.

So for this week’s What I Ate Wednesday, I thought I’d try observing what combinations I currently consume my nutrients in (that was the worst phrased sentence in the English language, but I’m too tired to rewrite it, so my apologies).

Breakfast

My usual, oatmeal topped with 70% dark chocolate chips, walnuts and wheat germ (like my Packed Pumpkin Porridge, but with more milk and no pumpkin or pumpkin pie spice, if you wanted the recipe!)

Nutrients: Carbohydrates (oats, wheat germ), protein (oats, walnuts, milk), fats (walnuts, milk, wheat germ – EFAs)

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By the way, for those of you who – like me – eat the same breakfast every morning, my naturopath advised that I alternate it with something else, as she said things that we eat every day we can become sensitive to. I don’t know if this is true for everyone or if she was just advising me, so don’t take my words as if I’m a doctor making a recommendation! I just thought it was interesting. She also really recommended starting the day off with some protein, so I’ll alternate this with a protein shake or eggs and toast every now and then.

Morning Snack

My usual, a cup of tea with some lactose-free milk in it, and this time served with one of my naturally-sweetened blueberry muffins. Yum – this is one of my biggest treats of the day; I have this while browsing through some blogs and catching up on the world’s news…good times.

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Yes, that really is the same picture of my mug of tea from my last What I Ate Wednesday post, with the biscuits cropped out. So lame, I know. Here’s the muffin, also an old pic (and not a particularly good one). Sorry:

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Nutrients: Carbohydrates (muffin) and minuscule amounts of fruit (blueberries), fat and protein (milk in tea)

Lunch

In a hurry, the good ol’ standby: an Amy’s burrito:

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Nutrients: Protein (beans), fiber (beans, brown rice, wholewheat wrap), carbohydrates (beans, brown rice, wrap)

Snack

Honeycrisp apple. Yes, I stole this photo off the Internet.

Nutrients: fruit, fiber (both from the apple, of course)

Dinner

A huge salad and a slice of my mushroom goat cheese quiche…the recipe for which I’ll post this week!

Nutrients: vegetables (mushrooms, salad), carbohydrates (crust of quiche), fat (crust of quiche, salad dressing – olive oil, goat cheese), protein (eggs, goat cheese)

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Snack

Raspberries and 2 squares 85% Lindt dark chocolate

Nutrients: fruit (raspberries), fiber (raspberries), fat (chocolate)

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So not a huge vegetable day today, though I usually do eat more veggies. A lot of carbs, which is to be expected, I suppose. But specifically looking at food combining, it does appear I eat pretty blended meals, which has always been my goal as a vegetarian – protein, carbs and veggies/fruit at each major meal. So to have to split them up for a food combining experiment will be interesting. Stay tuned…?