Many claims such as "food incompatibility" and "common toxic home-cooked dishes" are circulating nowadays, filled with "taboos" like "Eggs and saccharin are incompatible, as it can easily lead to poisoning" and "Cucumbers and peanuts are incompatible, as they can harm vital energy." Are these seemingly common food combinations really so harmful that they must be described as "toxic" or "incompatible"? Are they scientific facts or exaggerations? Experts have revealed the truth behind some of these food incompatibility theories—
●Potatoes and Beef
The so-called reason for incompatibility: Since potatoes and beef require different concentrations of gastric acid for digestion, they will inevitably prolong the food's retention time in the stomach, thereby extending the time for gastrointestinal digestion and absorption. Over time, this can lead to gastrointestinal dysfunction.
Refutation: Starch cannot be digested in the stomach at all; it can only be digested in the small intestine. However, precisely because of the presence of protein in food, the rate at which starch enters the small intestine can be delayed, preventing a rapid rise in blood sugar. Everyone has experienced that if you only eat staple foods high in starch and low in protein, you get hungry quickly. If eating starch and protein together were harmful to health, then rice, steamed buns, and noodles could not be eaten with fish, meat, and eggs. Wouldn't human diets have to be completely rearranged?
●Eggs with Soy Milk or Saccharin
The so-called reason for incompatibility: Ovomucoid in egg white combines with trypsin in soy milk, reducing its nutritional value; eating eggs with saccharin can easily lead to poisoning.
Refutation: These combinations do not pose much harm to the body. Adding tea eggs to soy milk is still popular. In Western breakfasts, many people eat eggs and drink coffee, and many add saccharin to their coffee, yet there have been no reports of "eggs and saccharin" causing poisoning.
●Scallions with Tofu
The so-called reason for incompatibility: The calcium in tofu combines with the oxalic acid in scallions to form a white precipitate—calcium oxalate, which makes it difficult for the body to absorb calcium.
Refutation: If not eaten with tofu, wouldn't the oxalic acid in scallions be directly absorbed by the body? Once absorbed, couldn't it combine with calcium in the body to form stones? Wasting a little of the calcium in tofu is much better than risking the formation of kidney stones. Furthermore, foods containing oxalic acid are not limited to scallions; most vegetables contain it, such as bamboo shoots, water bamboo, spinach, amaranth, Malabar spinach, cabbage, water spinach, Gynura bicolor, New Zealand spinach, and Swiss chard. Compared to these vegetables, the oxalic acid content in scallions is limited and cannot have a significant impact on the calcium in tofu.
Conclusion: In reality, when people eat this dish, they mainly eat tofu, with scallions as a minor ingredient, so it is difficult to form calcium oxalate.
●Red and White Radishes Eaten Together
The so-called reason for incompatibility: White radishes are extremely high in vitamin C, but red radishes contain an enzyme called ascorbic acid oxidase, which destroys the vitamin C in white radishes. Once red and white radishes are eaten together, the vitamin C in the white radish will be completely lost. Not only that, when cooked with vegetables containing vitamin C, red radishes play the role of a destroyer. Cucumbers, pumpkins, and others also contain similar decomposition enzymes.
Refutation: What people don't realize is that "ascorbic acid" is just the chemical name for vitamin C! The so-called "enzyme" is the Japanese term for "enzyme." Because enzymes are very sensitive to heat, they are inactivated during the cooking process, so how could they destroy the vitamin C in white radishes?
Conclusion: In fact, most vegetables contain oxidases that destroy vitamin C, but in fresh vegetables, vitamin C and these enzymes exist in different parts of the cell. During the heating and cooking process, these heat-sensitive enzymes are inactivated and thus do not cause significant loss of vitamin C. In contrast, the destruction of vitamin C by heat itself is even greater. If you are really worried, stir-fry the carrots for a moment before adding the white radishes, and there will be no problem.
●Seafood and Fruit
The so-called reason for incompatibility: Seafood like fish, shrimp, and algae are rich in nutrients such as protein and calcium. If eaten with fruits containing tannic acid, it not only reduces the nutritional value of the protein but also easily combines the calcium in the seafood with the tannic acid to form a substance that is difficult to digest, which can irritate the stomach and cause discomfort. Fruits with high tannic acid content include persimmons, grapes, pomegranates, hawthorn, and green plums. Therefore, these fruits should not be eaten with seafood dishes at the same time; a two-hour interval is advisable.
Refutation: This has some truth, but it is not entirely accurate. Protein, calcium, and tannins can interact, but this is not the main reason for discomfort. Because if you eat protein-rich eggs or calcium-rich tofu and then eat these fruits, it does not cause the same strong reaction as eating seafood and fruit together.
Conclusion: If you have poor gastrointestinal function, you should avoid eating a large amount of fruit after eating seafood. Persimmons and crabs are both considered "cold" foods in traditional Chinese medicine. Even people with a "hot" constitution can develop stomach stones if they eat too many. In "Dream of the Red Chamber," after eating a few bites of crab, Daiyu put down her chopsticks, precisely because, as TCM says, "crab is cold in nature." If she were to eat some cold fruits or raw and cold foods afterward, she might have suffered from diarrhea and abdominal pain due to the cold in her body.
●Radish and Wood Ear Mushroom
The so-called reason for incompatibility: Eating both together may cause dermatitis.
Refutation: In fact, the risk of dermatitis only exists with fresh wood ear mushrooms; dried wood ear mushrooms do not cause dermatitis. There is also a risk of developing phytophotodermatitis after eating a large amount of green vegetables and then being exposed to strong sunlight, but radishes are not this type of vegetable. In fact, many people have stir-fried or stewed radishes and wood ear mushrooms together but have never developed dermatitis, not even minor skin issues like itching, peeling, or redness.
Conclusion: There are no reliable case records to show that a patient's dermatitis is related to eating radishes and wood ear mushrooms together. Therefore, this taboo is not credible, at least not one that is widely applicable.
●Soybeans and Pig's Trotters
The so-called reason for incompatibility: The alduronic acid residues in the dietary fiber of soybeans will form chelates with the minerals in pig's trotters, which can interfere with or reduce the human body's absorption of these elements.
Refutation: All plant foods have cell walls, and inside the cell walls is pectin. The basic structural unit of pectin is galacturonic acid. Like other plant gums with a negative charge, it has the effect of chelating metal elements. However, if such an action were to hinder nutrition and health, we could not eat any foods containing fiber, such as vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. Animal studies have confirmed that this amount of dietary fiber does not cause mineral deficiency in the human body. What we should generally be concerned about is the insufficient intake of dietary fiber, which prevents it from absorbing cholesterol and lowering blood sugar and blood lipids.
Conclusion: Pig's trotters are mainly composed of collagen and originally contain few minerals. In comparison, red meat, offal, fish, and shellfish are better sources of iron and zinc; nuts, legumes, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables are better sources of potassium, magnesium, and calcium. The main purpose of combining soybeans and pig's trotters is not to supplement minerals, but to increase estrogen levels and promote breast development and milk secretion.
●Chicken with Shrimp or Celery
The so-called reason for incompatibility: Chicken and celery eaten together will harm vital energy; chicken and shrimp eaten together will cause physical discomfort.
Refutation: Combining chicken and celery allows you to get good protein, trace elements, and dietary fiber. The claim that it harms vital energy has no scientific basis. Shrimp and chicken are both "warm" in nature and can tonify the middle burner and deficiency. There are no factors of incompatibility. Only when the water quality is contaminated and fish and shrimp carry toxins from the water can eating them with other meats cause poisoning, which is mistakenly attributed to food incompatibility. In fact, situations where chicken wings and river shrimp are eaten together are common, and no adverse reactions have been seen.
Conclusion: From a nutritional perspective, as long as not too much oil is added when making this combination, it is a very healthy and scientific combination that is beneficial to the body.
●Garlic and Scallions
The so-called reason for incompatibility: Both are foods that strongly irritate the intestines, and eating them together can easily lead to symptoms like abdominal pain and diarrhea.
Refutation: Both of these seasoning vegetables are highly irritating, but this is only true when eaten raw. After heating, the strongly irritating disulfides are broken down, producing sweet substances that are not irritating. Therefore, if you have a weak stomach and are not used to spicy garlic and scallions, you should avoid eating too much of them at once or eating multiple spicy substances together.
Conclusion: Cooking them together and using them as seasonings for stir-fries is completely worry-free.
There are only three truly incompatible food situations:
First, two foods produce harmful substances during their decomposition process. For example, river shrimp should not be eaten with vegetables and fruits rich in vitamin C, such as chili, tomatoes, and oranges, because the non-toxic pentavalent arsenic in shrimp meat can be reduced by vitamin C to highly toxic trivalent arsenic, i.e., "arsenic," and eating too much can be life-threatening.
Second, during the absorption and metabolism process, two foods have an antagonistic effect, mutually excluding each other. If eaten together, the resulting synergistic effect may cause a "PK effect" on nutrients, reducing the absorption rate of certain nutrients. For example, when calcium and magnesium are eaten together, or calcium and protein are eaten together, if one is excessive, the other cannot be absorbed.
Third, from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, foods are classified into four natures: cold, cool, warm, and hot. If two "cold" foods are eaten together, a person will feel uncomfortable. Eating too many "hot" foods can cause "internal heat." Only by eating foods of the four natures in combination can a balance of cold and heat be maintained. Therefore, depending on individual constitution, some people really should not eat too much of a certain food.
In reality, for food combinations that affect nutrient absorption, we can avoid harm and seek benefit by changing cooking methods. For example, spinach and tofu soup is listed as "incompatible" in many books. If we blanch the spinach in boiling water first to decompose its oxalic acid, calcium oxalate will not be formed, and thus the problem of "incompatibility" will not exist.
In daily life, the reference value of "food incompatibility" is not great; much of it is misinformation passed down. Most common food combinations are not as terrifying as rumors suggest, and there is no need to "choke on food for fear of choking" because of chemical reactions that are unlikely to occur. As omnivores, the more varied and diverse the diet, the safer it is for humans.