6B • SEPT. 8, 2023
bransonglobe.com
Food combining to stay ‘Fit for Life’: Not necessarily!
BY JODY JOHNSON GODFREY Wellness Design Specialist
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his article will be discussing the “benefits” of combining certain foods in order to get the most nutrition possible. The follow-up column for next week will deliver information on how to take supplements; which ones you may combine and which ones to take alone or separately.
When eating our meals or snacks, certain combinations have been known to be central to good health, optimum digestion and possible/probable weight loss. Improper food combining can lead to disease, toxin buildup along with digestive issues – supposedly. Food combining theories started with the ancient Indian medicine (Ayurvedic) and then became more accepted and prevalent in the mid-1800s and referred to as “Trophology, the science of food combining.” All this, pretty much, remained “accepted,” but then again, reviewed by the Hay Diet and stayed on track through present days. Commonly practiced in the food com-
bination diets, foods are assigned to different groups which are broken down into 1) carbs and starches 2) fruits 3) vegetables 4) proteins and 5) fats. But then, some diet methods simply categorize as: acidic, alkaline or neutral. Basically, this is just a chemistry class — but the “rules of thumb” (general conclusion) would be thus: 1. Drink or consume milk or dairy on an empty stomach. 2. Consume fruit on an empty stomach. 3. Don’t combine starches and protein. 4. Don’t combine different/ multiple proteins. 5. Don’t combine starches with acidic foods.
The food combining mentality is based on two presumptions: The first is that due to foods being digested at different speeds—combining a “fast digested” food with a “slow digested” food can cause a blockage or “traffic jam” in our guts, thus causing digestive “chaos.” The second concept is that different foods require different enzymes to be broken down and need to work at varying ph (acidity) levels in our digestive system. So, obviously, if multiple foods require different ph levels... our bodies can’t perform “digestion,” properly. Imagine this “dysfunction” ongoing each and every day?! Well, this may have been
the case many moons ago, but our bodies have evolved on “whole” foods, which usually contain some combination of carbs, proteins and fats. An example of this would be vegetables and grains—these are considered carbs, BUT, they may include several grams of protein, also. And, another example: Meat is considered a protein, but even the leanest cuts of meat still have SOME fat, too. So, bottom line, due to many foods containing a combination of carbs, fats and proteins... our digestive tract is always prepared to “do its thing” to a “mixed” meal via gastric acid, the enzymes “pepsin” and “lipase” which initializ-
MindFlow: Patently broken links
BY DANIEL KOREN, is a local business owner and motivational speaker.
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eff Easter recently told about his dad, James, who decided to “borrow” a car from a gentleman with two cars. To be sure the old-timer didn’t chase him down, James removed a part from the carburetor of the car he was not stealing, and then hotwired the other car to make his getaway. The car owner heard the commotion, saw him leave, jumped in the remaining car, and tried to race down the road after James. The second car soon sputtered and died.
James laughed and laughed with his friends about this as they took off for a night of irresponsibility and cruising the countryside. Finally, when they had ended their joyride, they headed back to return the car. No one was home, so as his usual style, James left it there all clean and full of gas, which was also “borrowed.” While James later became a man of integrity who loved Jesus, his story illustrates something we all struggle with. We tend to substitute weak social connections with things. Which things you choose to go after depend on your environment and natural inclinations. People hope that fast cars, new electronic gadgets, or the latest fashion trends will make them look good to their peers. One hopes that the stuff money can buy will give them status at work, get attention in the community, win them friends, and pos-
sibly attract the right mate. As the prodigal son learned, however, money and the things it can buy will only attract fair-weather friends. The aftereffect only leaves one empty which creates more brokenness. Do you get affirmation from labels on your clothes and the brands on your possessions? Everyone’s heart should swell with satisfaction when getting into a shiny new vehicle. However, one’s self-worth shouldn’t be based on external things. They come and go. My wife and I owned a mobile home for a time and afterward owned a log home. Our children have great memories from both places. I felt like a better father to be providing a bigger home with a basement, but it turns out that stuff is rather insignificant in the long run. Some “things” that people turn to are internal. In addition to using external
props for one’s broken social links, often those who are hurting turn to various forms of addictions. By self-medicating with drugs, alcohol, gambling, or pornography, one can forget their broken social connections. However, the distraction only lasts a short time, causing one to go back to it repeatedly, and quickly an addiction takes over that person’s identity. In a previous column, we looked at the hierarchy of social links: your relationship with yourself, your spouse, your best friends, your relatives and community, and your workspace or school. Often people invert the order of those by giving more attention to a lower-level social link than the more important ones. For example, how much more time have you devoted to be more skilled at work than to being a better human? Do you invest more quality time and
attention with your friends than with your spouse? How does the topic of “things” come into this concept of fixing our broken links? Perhaps a guy starts driving a big truck, hoping to look good on the streets of the community. Ever seen someone start going to the bar to make friends or find a mate? Drugs also might expand a person’s social connections, but not like he’d hoped. One man told me, “I had the most friends when I was the worst version of myself.” Substance abuse, pornography addiction, or compulsive gambling could be a person’s attempt to self-medicate from a broken relationship with his or her own self due to past trauma or heartbreak. Fixing the inner self will serve us much better than depending on outside props. When James Easter and his friends dropped that car off, they had to walk back to
es protein and fat digestion. For this reason, we don’t have to be concerned that our bodies must “choose” between digesting proteins and fats or starches and fats. The bacteria in our large intestine ferment any undigested carbs such as fiber, therefore, emitting gas (helpful short chain fatty acids) as waste production. In this case fermentation is actually positive as the fatty acids from the bacteria are linked to health benefits such as reduced inflammation, improved blood sugar and lower instances of colon cancer. Our bodies, have indeed, evolved into an “amazing digestive multi-tasking machine!”
their homes in the dark. On his way home, James found the owner of the two vehicles still on the side of the road. James felt in his pocket and found the part to the carburetor still there. He walked up to the man and asked what was the problem. The gentleman explained how frustrated he was with the car. James asked him to pop the hood so he could look at it. Out of view, he reinstalled the piece he had removed. “Try it now!” he called out to the driver. Suddenly the car vroomed to life. The driver hopped out and told James, “Thank you so much. I have fought with this thing for hours. My, my, the world needs more fine young men like you!” That event humorously raises the topic of the final social link that people prioritize incorrectly. Let’s talk about it next time, in this column!
Teens hook wallet full of cash, return it to Iowa farmer By Andy Corbley, Good News Network This summer Connor Halsa reeled in the fishing story of a lifetime when he went searching for walleye and got a wallet. Inside there was $2,000 cash, wet and soggy, but nonetheless cold and met-
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aphorically hard. Still, Connor and his dad agreed immediately they needed to find the owner. “My cousin opened the wallet up, and he said some words you probably shouldn’t say, and he showed everyone, and we took the money out and
let it dry out,” Connor told WDAY 7 news. Inside was a presumably soggy business card with a number on it and they used that to track down the owner—600 miles away in Iowa. Jim Denny lost it on a fishing retreat, but that was over a whole year ago if one can believe it. The resort Denny was staying at had to advance him the stay on credit, embarrassing him terribly, and he suspected the wallet jostled itself loose in the choppy waters.
Denny came all the way up from Iowa to Moorhead, Minnesota to reunite with the old billfold and the cash it contained. Young Halsa refused any amount of the cash inside, saying it was what any decent person would do. “To meet people like that, who are that honest, I tried to get them to take the money, and they wouldn’t do it,” Denney told WDAY. “I would take Connor as a grandson any day, and I would fight for him any day.”