James:

I'm glad it's useful to you...and I haven't yet seen anyone else investigate this particular angle.  The more research I do, the more I'm convinced that snacking is a major contributor to modern ill health.

Feel free to stick around! I publish new articles every Tuesday (well, sometime on Tuesday, anyway).

JS

David, Rachel:

Thank you!  I'm slowly becoming convinced that snacking is a major contributor to obesity no matter what type of food you're eating.

JS

Wood:

First, because excessively high blood glucose is poisonous.  When a bunch of glucose comes into our bloodstream, our body's first priority is to get rid of it.  This is more important than a little bit of proteolysis.

Second, because healthy, active people -- like humans throughout our history as hunter-foragers -- aren't insulin-resistant (unless they're hunters in winter eating VLC, in which case they won't have fruit to eat) and can normalize their blood glucose relatively quickly, without huge insulin spikes.

Third, because Paleolithic people didn't have access to fruit juice or refined sugars.  One small 12oz can of Coca-Cola has 39g of sugar...you'd have to eat 8 cups of raspberries, or three big oranges, to get that much sugar!  (Remember that modern fruits have been bred for size and sweetness...wild fruits tend to be smaller and less sweet.)

Fourth, because protein takes a while to clear from the bloodstream.  If you've eaten substantial amounts of protein recently, odds are there's still some circulating.

In other words, the healthier you are and the more you restrict yourself to reasonable quantities of whole foods, the less of an issue it's likely to be.  Our modern situation of sedentary, insulin-resistant people with chronically full glycogen stores due to constant carbohydrate intake is novel, and not something that would have happened often in evolutionary time.  I don't turn down the opportunity to eat wild berries if I come across them! 

However, if you're looking to optimize your muscular development, it seems like it's best to only eat fruit and other carb/sugar sources with some amount of complete protein.

JS

Wood:

There are a lot of theories about food combining, or why foods shouldn't be combined.  Most of them don't have any sound biochemistry behind them that I can see.  (Though I'm open to explanations.)

I've seen the "always eat fruits by themselves" thing before.  It is true that fructose is much more reactive than glucose, and tends to bond to proteins or fats ("glycation"), creating molecules we'd rather not have in our bloodstream.  For this reason, the Jaminets recommend eating fruit with saturated fats like cream or coconut, which slow absorption and are less prone to glycation.

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of much solid research on glycation in vivo: there are some suggestive studies, but nothing I can draw definite conclusions from.  And much of the fructose problem comes when we overload our livers by consuming too much at once (i.e. soda): otherwise it's taken right out of circulation by the liver.  So in the absence of solid evidence, I'm going with the science I understand (or think I understand).

Vince Gironda was way ahead of his time on some things, but I'm not sure what he means by acid vs. base environment.  In the stomach?  In the intestine?  In the bloodstream?  Where?

JS

Wood:

Yes, the stomach is heavily acid, and the small intestine is weakly acid.

It is true that eating meat causes your stomach to produce more acid, in order to break it down...but I'm not sure how that screws up CHO digestion.  Perhaps he was working on an early form of carb cycling and was wrong about why it works...which wouldn't surprise me.

JS