Diet Shelton - is it really useful?

The eponymous diet was developed by the American professor-dietician H. Shelton. The basis of this diet is a separate food, because according to the professor, human digestion is not designed to digest different types of foods at the same time. Let's find out more in detail what is the separate diet for Shelton, as well as get to know the opinions of opponents of this diet.
The essence of Shelton's diet
Shelton points out that a certain medium is necessary for the cleavage of each product-acidic, neutral or alkaline, which activates the activity of the corresponding enzymes. Thus, products containing predominantly starch are incompatible with foods that have a lot of protein. Since the cleavage of starch is due to enzymes that are produced only in an alkaline environment, whereas the protein on the contrary - in an acidic, and if the products enter the stomach at the same time, not one of them will be digested fully. There may be a situation where the body only digests a product that requires, say, an acidic environment, and another, which requires an alkaline medium for the cleavage, will be worse absorbed than when used separately (after a while). Simultaneous reception incompatible in the concept of Shelton, causes in the stomach and intestines the processes of putrefaction and fermentation, there is increased gassing and poisoning of the body with slags. Separate food can avoid this. Shelton indicates which products can be combined and which can not. However, the vast majority of foodstuffs the dietician recommends to consume separately, without mixing them with others. At one meal, for example, you can eat only meat, after a while - just flour products. Sausage should be eaten without bread, meat without garnish, pies with filling are excluded. You can not eat fish with potatoes, porridge with sausages, meat with pasta, bread with milk. Such dishes as borscht, meat soups, meat and cutlets with garnish are subject to them severely criticized. In separate nutrition, Shelton sees the foundation of human health.

The professor's recommendations are justified if they are applied to the nutrition of people suffering from any kind of digestive disease or food allergy. Such people can, for example, not digest milk or tolerate any other combination of products. In this case, the separate consumption of food by Shelton gives good results. It helped many get rid of various diseases, excess weight, improve their health.

What do the opponents of Shelton's diet say?
Is it necessary to adhere to such dietary restrictions to those who are healthy? What do other nutritionists think about them? Most believe that many Shelton recommendations do not have a serious scientific justification. Here, for example, he advises not to combine the reception of milk with other products. Although the excellent compatibility of milk with buckwheat has long been proven. Its proteins are very advantageously complemented by its amino acid composition. Milk proteins also enrich the chemical composition of white bread and various cereals. For the same reasons, as experts believe, there is no point in refusing to eat porridge with meat at the same time, meat food with vegetables, etc. (animal proteins are more rich in amino acid composition and well complement vegetable, improve their assimilation). Such a combination of products ensures the simultaneous receipt of many valuable substances into the body. Thus, dietary fiber, which is abundant in vegetables and bread, has a regulating effect on the intestinal microflora, improves its motor function, prevents the development of decay processes (when food is fed only by meat in the intestine, putrefactive processes dramatically increase). Of course, the combination of vegetables and milk, fatty foods and sweets can cause an intestinal disorder, and yet, basically, everything depends not so much on the combination of foods as on their quantity and the tolerability of each particular product.

Opponents of separate nutrition also note that digestion is for the most part not in the stomach itself, but in the small intestine, which in turn produces enough enzymes that break down food, regardless of the acidity of the environment.

Mixed food, according to his supporters, is the key to the work of the whole digestion, since it requires the isolation of all the enzymes of the digestive system. In his favor, they lead and the fact that in the digestion and assimilation of nutrients from food, hormones and vitamins take an active part in addition to enzymes. To provide the body with enough vitamins is possible only with mixed nutrition. Based on such views, most nutritionists recommend the maximum diversity of each meal. Separate nutrition results in the fact that most of the enzymes released in response to a food irritant remain "unemployed". Some endocrine glands also work in idleness. All this can lead to a disruption of the function of the digestive system, its diseases. In addition, by digesting one product, the body is faced with the problem of assimilating a large number of monotonous components.

However, we can not disagree with the best combinations of products recommended by Shelton, for example, porridge fill with butter, and foods rich in fat, eat with vegetables that contain coarse fiber and slow carbohydrates.

Are Shelton's advice applicable to a wide range of healthy people? Probably not. Separate food can not be massive and there is no special need to observe it for those who are healthy. However, in some diseases, separate meals can sometimes bring considerable benefits. So, if you suffer from a food allergy, then of course you have to take into account what you eat, and if, say, you do not carry milk and some other product, then their combination will be unfavorable, and especially negative if there are chronic diseases of the stomach and intestines (possibly exacerbating them).

In general, perhaps, the harmful effects of so-called unfavorable combinations of products are often clearly exaggerated, because the human digestive system has a large reserve capacity and is capable of digesting a variety of products and in a variety of combinations.

And yet, it's not so simple in the matter of Shelton's separate food, and it's no wonder that controversy does not cease around him. Pay attention to this fact. With mixed nutrition you have to resort to various kinds of spices, sauces, gravies to stimulate the release of a large number of digestive juices that activate digestion. This is, of course, facilitated by the variety of foods eaten. However, you agree, the allocation of a large number of juices, various enzymes requires a high voltage of the digestive system, a significant expenditure of energy, which does not have the best effect on our body.