Hay Food Combining Diet

Developed in 1911, Dr. William Howard Hay's food combining diet introduced dieters to the concept that dieting success is not merely how much you consume, but what foods you are consuming together. Dr. Hay's diet pays close attention to the pH balance of the body, noting that the human physique functions best when in an alkaline state. As the alkaline or acidic nature of your body can be affected by the food you consume, the Hay Food Combining Diet aims to teach you how to balance the scales of pH balance towards sustainable health.

Food Combing Theory

• The crux of Dr. Hay's approach was based on his research, which found that while meals containing either proteins or starches on their own can digest in roughly two hours, meals mixing proteins and starches can take upwards of 10 hours to digest, leading to purported fermentation of food in the stomach and the development of toxicity in the body. Thus, when following the Hay Food Combining Diet, you should strive to combine proteins with neutral foods or starches with neutral foods, but never combine proteins with starches in any single meal. Additionally, fruits are only to be consumed at breakfast. Dr. Hay used this approach to supposedly cure his dilated heart, which was an otherwise incurable condition at the time.

Food Combinations and Meal Timing

• Protein foods include all meats such as beef, chicken, fish, and turkey, but they also contain dairy products like eggs, cheeses, yogurt and milk. Other foods placed in the protein category include beans like lentils, soybeans, kidney beans and pinto beans. Starches contain the obvious items--wheat, rye, barley, oats, breads, cereals, flours, and the like, but the Hay Diet also places sweet fruits into the "starches" category. Among these are ripe bananas, figs, grapes and raisins. Additionally, "sweet" vegetables like pumpkin and sweet potatoes are considered starches under Dr. Hay's categorization. Remember that these are categories that should never be combined in a single meal.

  Neutral foods, on the other hand, can be safely combined with either proteins or starches. These foods include all nuts except peanuts (which are a legume), olive oil, egg yolks, butter, and cream.

  When it comes to meal timing, you should wait at least four hours between meals so that your stomach can fully digest its food, allowing you to bypass the potential hazard of inadvertent combination of starches and proteins.