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Food Combining – Separate Starches from Proteins

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This week you’ll learn how to properly combine foods for maximum weight loss. The practice of food combining makes every calorie you consume do double duty to help you lose weight. Many people do nothing other than properly combine whole foods to lose weight fast and maintain their goal weight. Food combining is essentially keeping Starches separate from Proteins and eating Fruit at the right time relative to whether you’ve eaten a Starch or Protein meal.

The Basics of Food Combining For Maximum Weight Loss

To give each meal and/or snack the time to thoroughly digest and move through your system without depositing unwanted fat and waste products, you need to allow two and a half hours after a Starch meal/snack before eating a Protein or Fruit meal/snack, and four and a half hours after a Protein meal/snack before eating a Starch or Fruit meal/snack. Veggies, nuts, seeds, and soy are Neutral and may be eaten with any meal or between meals, although I like to wait at least two hours after a meal so that I can have a big beverage before eating anything else.

This means that you will not have a baked potato with your steak, a bun with your hamburger or a tuna sandwich on traditional bread. But it doesn’t mean the end of life as you know it. There are many substitutions you can make to have your hamburger and eat it too – so to speak – which you’ll find on the substitution pages.

Print These Pages

For a list of foods that are Starches, foods that are Neutral and foods that are Proteins, go to the Food List page.

To help you manage your meals print out the List of Substitutions, Protein Substitutes, and Starch Substitutes pages and refer to them when making a meal or recipe that traditionally would be an imperfect combination.

Get out your favorite recipes and rework them so that they don’t contain any incompatible items.

Working With Food Substitutions

Substituting soy products for dairy and meat products will open up your diet by giving you more food choices. For instance, while you shouldn’t have milk on your cereal because you would be combining a Protein with a Starch, you can have nondairy milk on your whole-grain, sugar-free cereal. Nondairy cheese can substitute for dairy cheese in a burrito or a Pizza Sandwich.  Soy “ham” makes a great deli style sandwich on whole grain bread.

One word of caution regarding nondairy cheeses. Some brands taste awful and don’t melt well. Experiment until you find one you like. If you happened to have a Trader Joe’s store near you I think their soy cheese is the best there is. If you want to avoid cheese altogether try using guacamole, slices of avocado or humus in place of cheese.

If you find it difficult to switch cold turkey to nondairy products, begin substituting 1/4 of the dairy or meat in your Starch recipes with soy products. Then try 1/2, then 3/4, then all soy. See Starch Substitutes for more ideas.

A word to those on high-Protein diets; don’t assume that all soy products are completely Neutral. Read the ingredients. You’ll often find grain products which will add to your carb intake. UnDieters on the Basic or Family Plan need not worry about the small amount of grain in these soy products. Typically I use these soy products with Starch and Neutral meals and use meat and dairy products (rather than their soy alternatives) with Protein meals. Vegetarians can however use these soy products with Protein meals.

A note to those allergic to dairy; sometimes you’ll find derivatives of dairy products such as casein which is a milk protein in dairy substitutes. I’ve only found one nondairy cheese that does not contain casein (Soymage), but I don’t like how it tastes or melts. So read carefully and make a  note of those products you like that are good UnDiet substitutes. Tip: so that I don’t have to try and remember or reread the label when making a meal or snack I mark my purchases with a “P” for Protein, “S” for Starch, or “N” for Neutral.

Getting Started with Food Combining

You may not be able to jump right into whole wheat bread and nondairy cheese, but you can structure your meals so that you’re not eating Starches with Proteins. If you’re used to meat and potatoes it will be a bit of a challenge, but if you’re serving some of your favorite veggie dishes instead of potatoes with your Protein meals, and nixing the rolls or using Protein Rolls, you should do okay. If you anticipate lots of objections from your family, start by serving potatoes or their favorite rolls and a veggie dish that they like with your Protein meals. Every now and then eliminate the potatoes or rolls, substituting a Protein Bread or Protein Rolls until you find what satisfies and then you can completely eliminate the potatoes and bread with Protein meals.

Foods like fried chicken which combine Protein and Starch (the bread coating is a Starch) can be easily converted, although if you’re not serving any other Starches with your meal the small amount of flour and bread crumbs used to coat the chicken is fine, as long as they are whole grains. Some great substitutes for the flour coating on any Protein food are:

  • ground sesame seeds
  • ground nuts
  • ground pork rinds
  • Protein Bread crumbs
  • soy flour or a mixture of any of these

Be Prepared For Maximum Success

Using the substitution charts begin constructing a shopping list so you’ll have the ingredients you need to begin making over your favorite meals.
Get out your favorite recipes and rework them so that they don’t contain any incompatible items. Make a list of any items you’ll need to purchase or prepare.
Eating Out While Food Combining

New research showing that our bodies can handle mixing small amounts of Protein and Starch has given us wider margins when constructing meals. The trick is to keep the ratios small. For instance the small amount of flour in a gravy served with a Protein meal or the small amount of breading in meatloaf or meatballs shouldn’t set you back. The trick is to make sure you eat lots of raw Fruits and/or veggies with every meal. It also helps to take an enzyme supplement. I still use soy flour, veggie broth, and ground pork rinds when I make these items at home but this new research gives me more options when I’m eating out.

$$$aver

When making a Protein meal serve larger portions of vegetables and smaller portions of meat and dairy. If you’re used to having meat for most of your dinners, cut back to three or four meat meals per week. Check out the Recipe Index for some satisfying Starch and Neutral meals, and the Meat-less Recipes Index will help you plan meals that contain less meat and therefore cost less.

Step-By-Step

1. Keep Starches separate from Proteins.
2. Print out these pages:

3. Begin making the proper food substitutions.
4. Make a shopping list.
5. Prepare substitute items that you’ll need to prepare meals.
6. Don’t try too many substitutions at once. Take it gradually so you don’t feel overwhelmed or discouraged.
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Next Issue

A special menu plan filled with UnDiet basic recipes designed to help you prepare foods that are traditionally improper combinations. Once you try the Pasta Alfredo with Bacon, UnDiet Pizza, Crispy Chicken, Bacon Muffins, Maple Walnut Cream Cheese Pie, Meatloaf with Flourless Gravy … you won’t worry about what you’ll be missing with the UnDiet, except of course, all those extra pounds that are already disappearing. All things are possible – with a little ingenuity!

  • Painlessly transition to whole grains.
  • Special recipes released only to Step-By-Step subscribers.
  • How to satisfy (fool) your family when serving them whole wheat and brown rice.