Day 7 - the "new" 4 food groups

Okay, yet another thing I've learned from Natalia Rose's book The Raw Food Detox Diet. Gotta give her credit! This girl knows her stuff. :) Anybody remember the Food Pyramid???? Their suggestion of all of those grains and meats.....a little outdated I suppose, seeing how far we've come as a country who now knows better, at least in the "food pyramid" field. Hehe. :) Natalia breaks it down to 4: starches, fleshes, nuts/seeds/dried fruit, and fresh fruit. There is a rule, though! You can never combine them. Weird, huh? They aren't even allowed to touch in the stomach, which means you need a few hours in between eating each different group. I'll explain. Her purpose is called "quick exit combinations". When any of these food groups are combined, it slows digestion. I really wish I could just quote her whole chapter on this. I'm skimming over it right now, trying to decide what is most important to share with you. Grasp this concept first: some of the food we eat makes our stomach release an acidic digestive enzyme. Some food needs an alkaline one. Let's say food group #1 needs the acidic one, and food group #2 needs the alkaline one. You have eaten them at the same time (shrimp with pasta, for example), so now these enzymes have literally cancelled each other out. Acid + alkaline = neutral. :) Guess what happens next. Digestion is slowed WAY down and can't work properly, which causes the food you have just eaten to ferment. Germs and bacteria throw a party. Fermented food is the cake and ice cream. :) Your body then has to work so hard digesting your food that it can't do some other really important things well. Things like maintaining healthy organs and keeping your white blood cell count in check. This should be a HUGE light bulb moment for all of those readers who have weight loss in mind. If you are not eliminating waste quickly, you will lose weight slowly. Raw vegetables are "neutral" and they can be eaten with any of the food groups except fresh fruit. Guess what else is considered neutral. :) 70% chocolate! You can find bars of chocolate at health food stores that will write the percentage of cacao that they contain right on the label. Just make sure you choose anything that is at least 70% or higher. I have not implemented any of this information into my own diet yet. This step is too big for me right now. But I do find it interesting, and it makes sense to me. So, there's my newest interesting fact. :)