Food Combining for Health: The bestseller that has changed millions of lives. Doris Grant

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       CHAPTER TWO The Hay System Explained

       There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

      The Hay system consists of five important rules:

      1 Starches and sugars should not be eaten with proteins and acid fruits at the same meal.

      2 Vegetables, salads and fruits should form the major part of the diet.

      3 Proteins, starches and fats should be eaten in small quantities.

      4 Only whole-grain and unprocessed starches should be used, and all refined processed foods should be taboo – in particular, white flour and sugar and all foods made with them, and highly processed fats such as margarine.

      5 An interval of at least four to four-and-a-half hours should elapse between meals of different character.

      The cardinal rule of the Hay system – not mixing carbohydrates (i.e., starches and sugars) with proteins and acid fruits – is generally misunderstood, although based on sound physiological principles long existing and long forgotten. In order to understand this rule it is therefore necessary to explain the classification of carbohydrates and proteins in the context of compatible food combinations:

      Misunderstanding regarding this classification has been the main reason why many investigators have dismissed the starch – protein concept as being without foundation. The main argument put forward to refute this concept is that nature herself combines proteins and starches in most foods; that if it is wrong to combine these dissimilar elements at the same meal then nature herself is in error.

      On first glance this argument would seem to be unanswerable; it is widely acknowledged that nature does not make mistakes.

      On second glance this argument reveals shallow thinking; nature does not combine in one food a high concentration of protein (as in meat) with a high concentration of starch (as in grains). Although meats do contain carbohydrate, this is in the form of glycogen which requires little, if any, digestion, and its presence therefore does not interfere with the conditions necessary for protein digestion. Similarly, although grains contain about 10 per cent protein, this is incomplete in character, and is not in a concentrated form (as in meat); its presence therefore does not interfere with the conditions necessary for starch digestion.

      Apart from the single exception of the mature, or dried, legumes – peas, beans, lentils and peanuts – nature combines starches and proteins in the same food in a form and in proportions which digest together perfectly, and in such a way, also, that the food is either predominantly starch or predominantly protein. The dried legumes are ‘the exception which proves the rule’; they contain too high a percentage of both protein and starch to be compatible in themselves (but become compatible and highly beneficial when sprouted – see Part Two). People who are accustomed to their habitual consumption over a long period can build up a tolerance to them just as they can build up a tolerance, for example, to smoking. But people who are not accustomed to them usually experience discomfort – and very audible protests from their digestive organs!

      The Why and How of Starch and Protein Digestion

      Proteins require an acid medium for digestion. When animal proteins enter the stomach this stimulates the production of hydrochloric acid which activates the enzyme pepsin, whose function is the splitting and digesting of the proteins. This action in the stomach can only take place in a wholly acid medium; the presence of any concentrated starch or sugar with its accompanying alkalis interferes with, or neutralizes, this acid medium, and the proteins are then incompletely digested. The implications of this incomplete protein digestion are more serious than has hitherto been suspected. This is discussed in Chapter Three, in relation to allergy.

      Carbohydrates (starches and sugars) require an alkaline medium for digestion. This is initiated in the mouth by the action of the enzyme, ptyalin, which splits the starches into lower forms before entrance into the small intestine where their further reduction and main digestion takes place. As the whole process of starch digestion depends on its proper initiation in the mouth, all starch foods must be thoroughly chewed, otherwise the small intestine, although alkaline in all its secretions, cannot complete what the ptyalin started higher up in the tract.

      The stomach acts as a mixing chamber in which the saliva, with its active ptyalin, is thoroughly incorporated into the starches. During this early period in the stomach, lasting about 30 to 45 minutes, the normal acidity of the stomach is insufficient to cancel out, or interfere with, the alkaline medium necessary for preparing the starches for their intestinal digestion. The presence of meat, however, or other acid-compelling foods, or acid fruits, arrests this preparation and fermentation follows; the splitting-down process of starches can only occur in a positive alkalinity.

      When asked what was the scientific basis for the theory that starches and sugars should not be eaten with proteins and acid fruits at the same meal, Dr Hay replied:

       If starches are taken combined with acid fruits and if the stomach contents are withdrawn at intervals during digestion, it will be observed that the action of ptyalin has ceased and that the starches are not being split but will give the intense blue reaction of iodide of starch when iodine is applied to the chyme removed from the stomach. The same test may be performed with a combination of starches and proteins – the extraction of parts of chyme at intervals, as they happen during our digestion, will always show this arrest of ptyalin digestion meaning that the starches then unsplit will never be properly split.

      For many years the teaching has been that the highest levels of acidity are in the resting stomach. This belief has been responsible for the advice given year after year, and still given to ulcer sufferers ‘to avoid letting the stomach get empty’. But a number of authorities disagree with this belief (now in disrepute in certain medical quarters), including the physiologist A.H. James. In Physiology of Gastric Digestion (Arnold, London, 1957) he states: ‘The highest acidities of all are reached during the digestion of food, not when the stomach is empty.’

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