Whether you are passionate about health-consciousness or just looking to change your eating for the better, or maybe for good, you might find yourself at a loss. You might find yourself overwhelmed by the number of choices the market offers and the different types of foods that need particular digestive environments.
Combining fruits and veggies might look like one of the best attempts to enrich your diet with healthy options. You might think only about the high nutritional values, but truth be told, that is not entirely correct.
Well, some fruit combinations are better to avoid for your well-being. Otherwise, you might confront yourself with digestive problems and some serious chronic problems.
So, before mixing and eating fruits, take a look at the possible risks some combinations might bring and learn about all the blends you should avoid.
Why Combining Some Fruits Might Cause Illness?
As we all know, fruits are some of the richest sources of vitamins and nutrients (1). Furthermore, they are a great apport of potassium, vitamin C, folic acid, and other essential antioxidants we so need.
However, there is a whole list of rules when consuming fruits together. By following them, you can enjoy the best health benefits without repercussions.
Does the myth of eating mixed fruits and vegetables sound familiar to you? How many times have you seen those fruit salad recipes that invited you to try their combinations? Well, a lot of us have certainly made these combinations, although they are quite dangerous for our organism.
First, studies have shown that combining fruits and veggies without any information about these mixings might negatively affect the body. Although they might look very nutritive and tempting to include in a daily diet, they might work in an opposite way for the stomach.
Secondly, besides the proven studies, some fruit combinations are better to exclude from your diet. If you want to enjoy well-being, take a look at these risky fruit combos are try to avoid eating these mixings from now on.
Fruit Mixes To Avoid
Take a look at the list below. Do you recognize some bad eating habits? If yes, read the explanations and improve the fruit combinations you have been doing so far.
1. Acidic Fruits With Sweet Fruits
The first combination you should avoid is eating acidic fruits combined with sweet ones. For instance, avoid acidic fruits, such as strawberries or grapefruits, next to sub-acidic fruits, like peaches, apples, or pomegranates. Also, you should avoid fruits like bananas, that is too sweet to help your digestion.
Even though the association of strawberry and banana is delicious, putting together a sweet fruit, such as a banana, with an acidic one can cause you acidosis, nausea, and headaches.
2. High Protein Fruits and Starchy Fruits
Most of the “detox smoothies” contain plantains and vegetables that are high in protein. For instance, some fruits like green bananas are starchy by nature. But other vegetables have starch in them, like corn, water chestnuts, or potatoes.
Now, these types of greens should not be eaten with high-protein foods, such as broccoli, spinach, and guava.
Our organism cannot digest this food because it needs different bases, like the alkaline ones. These have the power to break starch, while an acidic base would barely break the proteins.
3. Melons With Other Fruits
Interesting or not, melons are quite particular fruits that should be eaten alone or in combination with other melons. These fruits are celibates that don’t work quite nicely next to any other fruit.
Melons have high water content (2), so they might not digest properly when combined with fruits.
The explanation is simple: melon will be absorbed more rapidly as compared to other fruits. Now that you know this, you should stop making special juices with melon and other fruits and consume your cantaloupe, watermelon, and muskmelon all alone. Instead, learn to make delicious fresh watermelon juice.
4. Papaya and Lemon
When you think about the papaya and lemon combination, you might either find it delicious or simply too odd to include in your diet.
Whatever your position would be, this mixing is a combination to avoid. Anemia or hemoglobin imbalance are just a few of these mixing consequences. Furthermore, it can be really dangerous for children, so try to avoid these fruits together as much as you can.
5. Guava and Banana
Do not eat guava and banana together, as this blend can cause nausea, headaches, gas buildup and increase the risk of acidosis.
Other Contraindications You Should Know About
Now that you know which fruits don’t work together with others let’s see other combinations you should totally avoid. Ready? Check this list as well:
Orange and Milk
Do not even drink milk with orange juice or the fruit itself. This mixing is very hard for your digestion and can also cause numerous other issues. As you know, oranges are full of acid (3), which can destroy the enzymes that can digest the starch present in the cereal.
Now, if your favorite breakfast is milk with cereals, do not add orange into this mix. The combination might lead to indigestion.
Fruits With Vegetables
Another combination you should avoid is this one. Most of the salads might indeed contain lots of fruits and veggies. However, for your digestive system, it might be totally improper to mix fruits with vegetables.
The digestion speed for each of these categories is different, so they are digested in their own way. According to most nutritionists, eating carrots and oranges, for instance, would be a total mess for the digestion system and might end in excess of bile reflux and heartburn.
Exception
You can combine apples (which are both fruits and vegetables) with carrots (which are roots and vegetables) and bananas (which are fruits). Don’t worry about combining bananas with apples and carrots in your smoothies or different meals of the day.
Here’s a nice recipe to try.
Orange With Carrots
Do not mix carrots with oranges, as this combination can cause kidney damage and heartburn.
Sour Fruits and Yogurt
Well, the main problem with yogurt is yeast, as well as mold contamination. These two compounds in yogurt are a big reason why dairy products can go bad sometimes.
By combining yogurt with sour fruits, like berries, sour cherries, or raspberries, your digestive system might produce toxins that can cause allergy-like symptoms or sinus congestion.
How To Combine Fruits Properly
Ok, now that you know how not to mix fruits, it’s time to give you some alternatives.
By learning how to mix fruits, you won’t have to deal with bloating, difficult digestion, stomach hurt, and so on. Here are the main rules:
Sweet Fruits
Sweet fruits do not contain any acids, and they take longer to digest. However, they might not be the best cleansers, but at least they are full of minerals. These fruits take around one hour to digest. Some of them are grapes, bananas, papaya, figs, prunes, or raisins.
Acid Fruits
You can securely combine blackberries with grapes, sour cherries, lemon, lime, grapefruits, gooseberries, pomegranate, strawberries, orange, pineapple, and tomatoes. The digestion time, in this case, is around 40 minutes.
Semi-Acid Fruits
These fruits have a low level of acidity. Thus if you have problems with grapefruits or lemons, you can try to eat more blueberries, apricots, mangoes, papayas, or berries instead. The digestion time would be around 30 minutes.
Neutral Fruits
These fruits are more nutty and full of vitamins, proteins, salts, and oils. Combine olives, pistachios, walnuts, coconut, and avocado without any doubt.
Melons
Melons are full of water. This is why the human body will break them down immediately. Try not to mix melons with any other food, including fruits too. Melons will digest in 10 minutes.
In Conclusion
Always try to remember that simplicity is the goal in combining fruits. Meals with few ingredients will improve digestion and allow the body to assimilate nutrients.