Benefits of Food Combining

You can boost the power of the healthy foods you eat by combining certain foods so that their nutrients are more available to your body. How your food is grown and how long it takes to get to your kitchen, can also impact the nutritional quality of what you eat. In addition, some food preparation techniques can release more nutrients.

Eat Local and Organic

Eating local and organic is a simple way to improve the nutrient density of the foods you eat. When foods travel long distances to get to you, they are often picked early and refrigerated until they reach their destination. The nutrient density can degrade immediately after picking. If you have a chance to talk to your local grower, you may be able to determine that their farming practices are essentially organic. They just may have not gone through the certification process. In addition, they may grow fruits and vegetables that don't transport well and that you can't find at a grocery store.

Chopping Garlic and Onions

Once you chop or crush garlic and onions, their nutritional density increases for the next 10 minutes. If you wait 10 minutes before cooking them or consuming them, you'll maximize the nutrients available to your body. When onions are chopped, they also release organosulfur compounds that make your eye's water. These organosulfur compounds are powerful anti-oxidants with many other health benefits.

Add Vitamin C to Iron Rich Foods

Adding some citrus juice to iron rich foods like leafy greens, chickpeas, tofu, lentils, and oats helps increase the absorption of the iron in those foods. Peppers also contain vitamin C, so you could consider combining peppers with your leafy greens. Garlic and onion also increase the availability of iron from these plant based foods.

Fat Soluble Vitamins

Foods rich in fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K should be eaten with fat to maximize absorption. You'll notice that supplements that contain these vitamins either contain a fat or are include instructions to take them with fat. Your body needs all of these to maintain optimum health. Vitamin A is primarily for vision and healthy hair, but it is also beneficial for immune function. Vitamin D is best known for it's beneficial affects on bone health. Vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant and Vitamin K is used primarily for blood clotting, but also helps support bone health.

Raw or Cooked

Some vegetables are more nutritious when cooked and some are better raw - or close to it. Sulforaphane is a powerful antioxidant that is found in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, broccoli sprouts and cabbage. It is released when these foods are either chopped or chewed because the cell walls are broken. If you don't want to eat them raw, adding a little mustard seed powder to the cooked vegetables can activate the sulforaphane.

Foods high in water soluble vitamins like B and C, are best eaten raw. This includes sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and leafy greens. The heat of cooking these foods draws the water, along with the vitamins, out of them. If you do cook these foods, add them at the end of the preparation process. Of you cook them first to add to a recipe, save the water and drink it since that's where the vitamins are.

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