Ep. 226: The Perfect Plate?

In this episode, Stacy and Sarah discuss whether different foods should never be eaten together.
Click the picture above to be taken to iTunes
 

If you enjoy the show, please review it in iTunes!
The Paleo View (TPV), Episode 226: The Perfect Plate?
Intro (0:00)
News and Views (0:40)
Stacy is feeling better, but Sarah is catching up from taking care of a sick kid!
Sarah now has a real Christmas tree, following in Stacy's footsteps. Stacy and Matt have a tradition of cutting their own tree with the boys, now 11 years strong!
Sarah's philosophy is "Do what feels good to you, with guidance from scientific research," words we can all live by!

This week's topic: Food combining! (10:04)
A 14 year old girl has asked this question about food combining, an idea from other alternative diet communities about not eating some food with other foods.
We had Mira and Jayson Calton on our show, and they have ideas about food combining as well. In particular, Stacy remembers Mira talking about spinach being high in oxalic acid, and therefore counteracting all the nutrients in the meal you are eating.
Oxalates and Phytates are antinutrients that bind to other nutrients, rendering them unable to be processed in the body.
A healthy gut microbiome can liberate those nutrients later.
But it's only the acid that is able to bind to minerals. Usually in foods these compounds are already bound up, and therefore unable to bind to nutrients in other components of your meal.
Our question is about ideas like only eating eating fruit by itself and building a "proper plate".

Caroline (14 years old) asks, "What do you think about properly combined meals? Meaning no more than one concentrated food per meal which is anything other than fruit or vegetable. And only eating fruit on an empty stomach, raw? And what about about egg yolks. Said that eggs should only be eaten raw... And that scrambling was the worst way to have them; that would damage their cholesterol?" (17:21)
We encourage people to look at the source of information, including us! Examine where they're getting their ideas and why because anyone can type anything on the internet.
There are a lot of signaling hormones in the digestive system that lead you to believe that meals are best with a variety of foods:
Digestion is a process of breaking food down into smaller and smaller pieces until you get to small molecules the body can use.
It starts in the mouth with chewing, which is mechanical digestion, and saliva, which has enzymes like salivary amylase to begin the chemical digestion
Food then goes to the stomach where stomach acid and enzymes that break down protein
The small intestine receives this chyme, which activates signals to various organs to do their work, like the pancreas and gall bladder.
The small intestine has three parts: Duodenum, Jejunum, and Ileum
The large intestine has most of the gut bacteria and is where fermentation happens. Everything that is unable to be digested forms stool
Hunger hormones are released all along the way.
Adiponectin lets the brain know how much energy stores there are, as does leptin and insulin
Cholecystokinin increases when we eat fats. It's the fastest hormone that tells the brain to stop eating. This is why eating fat helps with satiety. It also slows digestion to give enzymes time to work. It signals for release enzymes to be released that break down all macronutrients.
And because its a problem when protein enzymes have no protein to break down, it seems like pairing fat and protein is a great idea.
Oxyntomodulin supresses hunger when eating in the presence of protein and carbohydrates and slows digestions
Peptide YY signals to the pancreas to stop producing enzymes and reduces hunger while helping the colon to absorb water and electrolytes.
Glucagon-like Peptide 1 tells the brain to stop eating in response to fat, protein and carbohydrates from the last part of the intestine.
Ghrelin is the most famous hunger hormone. W