Experts Debunk the "Incompatible Foods" Theory
On August 5th, the "Are Foods Really Incompatible?—Food Safety Expert Seminar," jointly organized by the Chinese Nutrition Society, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, and Beijing Youth Daily, was held in Beijing. Experts such as Gu Xiaohong, Party Deputy Secretary and Doctor of Epidemicology at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Ge Kejiu, Honorary Chairman of the Chinese Nutrition Society, and Jia Jianbin, Secretary-General, refuted the widely spread and even panic-inducing "incompatible foods" theory from the perspectives of both Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and nutrition.
Gu Xiaohong: Foods are classified as cold, hot, warm, or neutral, but they are not "incompatible"
Professor Gu Xiaohong from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine stated that according to TCM theory, all foods, whether fruits, vegetables, meats, or grains, have their own nature: cold, hot, warm, or neutral. The consumption of foods with different natures may have some side effects on the human body, which we call "food incompatibility."
Moreover, the "incompatibility" where the combination of natures causes side effects varies from person to person. For example, crab is a cold-natured food, and persimmon is also cold-natured. When these two cold-natured foods are consumed together by a person with a deficient and cold constitution, it can easily lead to diarrhea. This is what is meant by food incompatibility; it is not that the foods themselves are "incompatible," but rather related to individual factors like a person's constitution. Therefore, one cannot say that food "incompatibility" causes diseases or death.
Professor Lin Yin, Director of the Department of Health Preservation and Rehabilitation at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, believes that many foods that can cause problems when eaten alone should not be implicated by the incompatibility theory. For example, in the "Jin Gui Yao Lue," it is recorded: "Eating raw meat to satiety and then drinking milk causes 'white worms'." The "white worms" actually refer to tapeworms, a parasitic disease caused by the presence of pig or beef tapeworms in the human small intestine, commonly affecting people who eat raw or undercooked pork or beef. Therefore, it has nothing to do with drinking milk and is not a matter of incompatibility.
Lin Yin stated: "The issues noted in historical literature about consuming certain foods together reflect the ancient people's difficult exploration of food nutrition and safety. Without microscopes or knowledge of bacteria, much of this knowledge was recorded under those conditions. But with the advent of modern medicine, we should no longer blindly promote the 'incompatible foods' theory."
Professor Weng Weijian from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine stated that in early 2011, the state reissued the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents" (Concise Edition), again reminding people to eat scientifically and that a diversified diet is beneficial to health. We should base our diets on scientific knowledge rather than blindly believing in the "incompatible foods" theory.
Ge Kejiu: Experiments Prove the Incompatibility Theory is Unscientific; a Balanced Diet is Most Important
The "incompatible foods" theory has a long history, with a wide variety of incompatible food pairings, even including common dishes like beef stewed with potatoes, scrambled eggs with cucumber, and scallions with tofu, leaving people at a loss as to what to eat.
As early as 1935, in Nanjing, a popular legend claimed that eating bananas and taro together caused food poisoning due to incompatibility. Zheng Ji, a leading figure in Chinese nutrition and a professor at Nanjing University, decided to verify this claim through experiments. He collected 184 pairs of foods said to be incompatible from folklore and selected 14 pairs that people commonly eat together, such as bananas and taro, peanuts and cucumber, scallions and honey, and beef and chestnuts. He had both animals and humans test these foods. Within 24 hours after consumption, the expressions, behavior, body temperature, and stool color and frequency of all test subjects were normal. Thus, the theory prevalent in Nanjing that poisoning was caused by eating the "incompatible" foods, bananas and taro, was self-refuted.
To verify whether there is any basis for the incompatibility theory, the Chinese Nutrition Society, Lanzhou University, and Harbin Medical University conducted experiments. Lanzhou University selected 60 healthy volunteers in the Lanzhou area to test five typical "incompatible food" pairs. The results showed that after seven days of consumption, no adverse reactions or clinical symptoms appeared in the group. The subjects' mental state, diet, sleep, and bowel movements were all normal, with no symptoms such as bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, or nausea. The experiments at Harbin Medical University also confirmed that the "incompatible foods" theory has no scientific basis.
Ge Kejiu explained that it is true that nutrients in food interact and affect absorption; for example, oxalic acid in spinach can reduce the absorption of calcium from food, and eating spinach and tofu together has a certain impact on calcium absorption. "As long as we achieve reasonable搭配 (pairing) and a balanced diet, the interactions between nutrients can be negligible."
Life Example: Seafood + Vitamin C = Arsenic?
Jia Jianbin, Secretary-General of the Chinese Nutrition Society, gave a relevant example from daily life. For instance, it is widely known that eating seafood with vitamin C produces arsenic. In the movie "Double Diet," there is a plot where the male protagonist gets poisoned after eating vitamin C and then returning home to eat grass shrimp. In reality, according to calculations, even if the arsenic in normal seafood reacts completely with vitamin C, one would need to eat 10 kilograms of seafood to get 1 milligram of arsenic, and hundreds of kilograms would be required to reach a toxic dose. This is under the prerequisite of having enough vitamin C intake to participate in the chemical reaction. In fact, even if one ate 10 kilograms of seafood, it would be impossible to simultaneously ingest a sufficient amount of vitamin C to react with it. Moreover, the rate of chemical reaction in the body's environment is extremely low.
Therefore, these quantities are far from enough to cause poisoning. People often use a few drops of lemon juice, which contains vitamin C, when eating seafood to remove the fishy smell and greasiness. This is a well-known culinary practice worldwide, and no one worries about arsenic poisoning from it.
Professor Xu Jun, a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese Nutrition Society, said that the human body is not a test tube; it is a light-avoiding, closed system with the action of gastric and intestinal fluids. A chemical reaction that is theoretically feasible is by no means a simple "1+1=2" inside the human body.
Foods Rumored to Cause Death When Eaten Together
Pork and chrysanthemum are incompatible: Eating them together can seriously lead to death.
Meat and bayberry are incompatible: Eating them together can seriously lead to death.
Goose meat and persimmon are incompatible: Eating them together can seriously lead to death.
Chicken and sesame are incompatible: Eating them together can seriously lead to death.
Saccharin and egg white are incompatible: Eating them together can cause poisoning, and in severe cases, lead to death.