NUTRITIONRECOMMENDATIONS

IS THE COMBINATION OF TOMATOES AND CUCUMBER REALLY UNHEALTHY?

By Şubat 2, 2018 No Comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

I usually “share” an article that catches my attention on Facebook, so that I can find it easily on my page and read it later. What I’m saying is that I don’t necessarily share articles because I agree with them or want my friends to read them too.

This was the case with the Tomato, Cucumber salad article.

This article sated that you should never mix tomatoes and cucumbers together because “it was not beneficial for your health.”

What do they claim?

“Tomatoes and cucumbers have different digestion time and mixing them can cause health complications. The bad food combination can trigger digestive problems such as stomach ache, gas, nausea and bloating. Cucumbers also contain a substance that destroys vitamin C in tomatoes. So it is more beneficial to our health to eat cucumbers without any additions.”

The English is pretty bad, and it is all over the Internet. There is actually another site that claims the combination could kill you. They also claim that you should never eat watermelon with another kind of melon, because “these fruits were meant to be eaten alone, not in combination with any other fruit.”

We’ve all been subjected to all kinds of misinformation on the Internet, but this is ridiculous. Are they trying to sell us something? I don’t see that either.

Actually, there are a couple of shreds of truth, but they are grossly misstated.

  • It is true that eating foods with vastly different digestion times can upset the stomach of some people. This happens because your stomach doesn’t have the time to properly digest the more difficult foods before they make their way to the small intestines, and this can lead to fermentation in the gut…gas. However, cucumbers and tomatoes aren’t that different.
  • The second shred of truth is that cucumbers do have an enzyme that destroys vitamin C. But this is true of other fruits and vegetables, like cabbage, cauliflower, apples and bananas. Don’t worry though; the digestion process takes care of this. What do we put in the dressing of our cucumber and tomato salad? Yes, vinegar; this also takes care of the enzyme.

The big question is, can any of the warnings in these articles lead to dangerous outcomes? No. If it hurts your little tummy, then don’t eat it. If not, don’t worry.

 

A Few Notes From Me

 

There are a few points that I have consistently made in the Blog.

  • Eat your fruit half an hour before your meal, and try to limit fruit consumption to once a day.
  • Don’t combine foods containing cholesterol (dairy, eggs, meat, etc.) with fruit. The point to be stressed is fructose. When, for example, you have your blueberries and yogurt, the fructose in the blueberries oxidizes the cholesterol and consuming this is not very healthy, to say the least.
  • Try to eat locally grown, fruits and vegetables in season. In the old days, do you remember cucumber and tomato salad in the winter? No, it was a summer salad. The seasonality of fruits and vegetables are synchronized with our body’s seasonal needs.

That’s it; see you all next time.

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