Food Combining on The Hay Diet
What is Food Combining on The Hay Diet?
The Hay diet is named after Doctor William Howard Hay who created the diet in the early 20th century in response to his own illness (heart trouble, high blood pressure and kidney diesease). Hay created the diet from following the teachings of American Naturopaths. Hay ate only natural foods fresh fruit, vegtables, whole grains, meat and fish. Hay astounded doctors by recovering in 3 months from his illnesses and losing 3 stone in weight.
The diet has four rules:
- Seperate Starch from Protein and acid fruits at the same meal
- Cut out processed food
- Eat 50% fruit, vegtables and salad
- Leave three to four hours between different meals
Following the simple rules of the Hay Diet can heal or aleviate many conditions including hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar), candidia, food intollerances and allergies. The hay diet can also reverse chronic and degenerative conditions such as constipation, indigestion and arthritis. Through the natural weight loss that often occurs, health risks linked to obesity, such as diabetes, gallstones and coronary heart disease are also reduced.
How does the Hay diet work?
The digestion of carbohydrates requires alkaline medium and begins in the mouth. The enzyme ptyalin starts to break down the startch before the food reaches the stomach and small intestine where the main digestion takes place.
Contrstaingly Protein requires acid medium for digestion. Hydrochloric acid is produced in the stomach, accitvating the enzyme pepsin which breaks down and digests the protein
As demonstrated above, starch and protein require different substances to break them down. If we eat starch and protein together there is too little acid to effectively break up proteins and too much acid to continue the alkaline reduction of starch. This can lead to a number of health problems
How to follow the Hay Diet
The phrase 'Don't mix food that fight' should be remembered when understanding the Hay diet. The core message behind the Hay diet is to have concentrated protein meals (which include meat, fish, eggs, cheese) seperate from concentrated starches (potatoes, grains and sweeteed fruits). Vegtables (except potatoes) and salad can go with any meal.
Ideally you should leave 3 to 4 hours between a starch and protein meal - the main digestion of starch takes place in the first 30-45 minutes, contrastingly protein takes 2-4 hours to digest.
Please note there are many different variations of Food Combining and also different methods used in the Hay Diet (depending on writer).For further information try the following:
Food Comining and The Hay Diet
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