5 Food combinations that are harming your health

There are certain foods that you shouldn't eat together.

Food combinations that can cause health or digestive issues

Some foods just don't belong together - or at least not when they're both in your digestive system at the same time.

Banana and milk

Many people eat bananas and milk together. They make great smoothies and the concept sounds great when you think about the protein, calcium, healthy sugars and fiber. People do it often after the gym or after a run to replenish lost nutrients.

The problem with combining bananas and milk

1. Digestive issues
2. Trouble sleeping at night
3. Asthma and allergies may get worse

Although both ingredients are healthy on their own, they don't seem to make a good combination. The mixture can cause bloating and troubles with your digestive system. The calcium in milk, mixed with the fiber in bananas, seems to be what gives people such a hard time on the digestive front.

It is recommended for you to wait at least 20 minutes after drinking milk before eating a banana to avoid the digestive issues that might follow. Some say that the combination can even escalate symptoms of asthma and allergies. Other sources indicate that the combo can disturb restful sleep at night.

Read more about the potential negative effects of bananas with milk.

Keep an eye out for these issues.

2. Wine and dessert

Why do I suddenly feel like the most unpopular guy in the room right now? People typically like to enjoy a glass of wine and dessert after a hard day at the office. It might flood your pleasure centers and ease up the tension from a rough day, but it could make things worse for a long run. It isn't recommended to have these two food items together because the taste of one item can completely over power or change the taste of the other.

The problem with wine and dessert

1. Weight gain
2. Insulin resistance
3. Desensitization to other healthy foods

The main reason why this combination isn't so good for you is because the desserts and the wine both contain elements that could potentially lead to weight gain. Excess sugar is converted into fat. A single gram of alcohol has almost double the amount of calories as the same amount of sugar (alcohol has 7 calories per gram; sugar has 4 calories per gram). Weight gain can cause serious heart problems and diseases related to adding excess fat.

You should try eating veggies with wine to control the fat-gaining potential of alcohol. By doing this, you’ll control your weight and potentially prevent a lot of diseases.

Choose your guilty pleasure wisely.

3. Tomato and Pasta

This one probably shocks you as it did me. I know that this combination might break the hearts of many Italian foodies; but the combo may cause harm in more ways than you know.

Have you ever noticed that after eating a tomato with pasta meal, you feel lazy and lethargic? This is why the two ingredients should never stay together. Tomatoes are acidic and therefore shouldn't be added to starchy foods like pasta.

The problem with tomato and pasta

1. Lethargy
2. Lack of energy
3. Weight gain

Tomatoes and pasta produce enzymes that are very good at breaking down the heavy starch. This is why you feel exhausted. Your body needs a lot of energy to break down the starch and hence you feel fatigued. It slows down the process of digestion, so rather than providing energy for the body, it is taking energy away. 

When your body is flooded with excess nutrients from the starch in a short period of time, it focuses on controlling the extra nutrients by converting it to fat. The body will also focus on pulling as much of the energy out of the blood stream as possible - to be converted into fat instead.

Instead of tomatoes, you can replace it with pesto. Pesto helps you to gain energy and prevent your body from feeling like a bloated balloon.

Use pesto instead of tomato paste.

4. Black tea and milk

98% of the British drink black tea with milk. 

Milk has many benefits on its own because it adds calcium and vitamin B 12 to your daily consumption, but that’s not always the case when it is combined with tea. Black tea comes with many benefits and it's very good for your heart, but adding milk can negate some of the heart-promoting effects.

The problem with black tea and milk

1. Limited absorption of minerals like calcium
2. Risk of kidney stones
3. Limited absorption of beneficial heart-health-promoting compounds in tea 

The chemicals in milk (minerals like calcium) can combine with that of the tea (tannin's) and decrease the actual benefits associated with the tea. During a survey in the USA it was noticed that those who drank black tea with added milk didn't receive a notable calcium boost - and they did not absorb any proteins from the milk either.

Many plant foods like tea limit the amount of mineral absorption that you get form normal food (like calcium and iron). In extreme cases, this may lead to kidney stones.

Add lemons to your tea instead so that your body can absorb the vitamins and essential nutrients found in the tea.

Use fresh lemon juice instead of milk.

5. Fruit and vegetables with large meals

Fruit and vegetables are one of the healthiest things that you can ever eat. It's one of the first things that I get my clients to eat more of. Unfortunately, eating fruit with meals is not as common a habit as it should be.

If you frequently indulge in the combination of fruit and vegetables with large meals, however, bloating and other digestive issues that follow might come from the fruit.

The problem with fruit or vegetables with large meals

1. Digestive issues
2. Bloating
3. Gas
4. Unshakable feeling of fullness

The reason behind that is the fact that fruit goes through the stomach fairly quickly, but it takes its time to digest in the intestines. Fruit and vegetables are full of fiber that the body cannot digest. It therefore sits in the intestines until it moves completely through. Fruit and veggies are mostly made up of water, so there is only a small portion of the food left after the water is absorbed into the bloodstream.

When you combine this with heavy foods that take much longer to go through the digestive system, it will digest even slower and you may sit with too much food in your digestive system for a prolonged period of time.

Instead of combining fruit with your larger meals, you should eat plant foods 30 to 60 minutes before a meal. This will reduce the amount of heavy food that you eat because you will still feel full. It will also allow the digestive system to prepare your digestive tract and help your stomach work its way through the amount of food that you'll be eating. 

It's always best to eat fruit in the morning as it can sometimes last for up to 10 hours in the digestive process. This will reduce the amount of food that you eat for a large portion of the day.

Fruit and veggies affect digestion.

Thank you for reading this article. I hope it helps you!

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