Diet taboo food list

The current consensus among the domestic nutrition society and the medical community is that most of the claims that "foods are incompatible with each other and cause death/disease" spread online have no scientific basis, and there is no universal "food incompatibility table" that is suitable for everyone.”； Most of the dietary taboos that really require vigilance are related to personal physique, food safety status, consumption amount, and special body/medication stage. It is false common sense to talk about "mutual restraint" without these premises.

In the past two years, I actually kept a colorful compatibility chart in my family. It can be printed out on A4 paper and has two pages. "Honey + green onions will cause blindness" and "crabs + persimmons will kill you." I came over to stop her and told her that her square dancing sister had just developed kidney stones. Eating them together would cause kidney stones, so I couldn’t finish the soup that day. Later, when I went to the hospital for a physical examination, I specifically asked the nutritionist about it. She was overjoyed and said that he had just drank two large bowls of spinach and tofu soup for dinner the night before, and there were no health problems.

Of course, this does not mean that all claims of "food matching problems" are groundless. There is a theory of "food opposites" in traditional Chinese medicine, but this statement is based on a premise - it must be considered based on personal physique, current solar terms, and even food cooking methods. It is not "two foods are naturally incompatible". To give the most common example, many people say that iced watermelon and hairy crabs are incompatible and cause diarrhea after eating them. I tried it once last summer and had diarrhea for two days after eating it. My brother ate it with me, but nothing happened after eating it twice in a row. Why? I have a weak spleen and stomach, so I can't bear the two cold things together. My brother has been strong since he was a child, and he can drink cold beer and kebabs for a week without getting upset. This is not a conflict between food, I just made it up.

As for the most popular saying on the Internet, "shrimp + vitamin C = eating arsenic", I specifically checked the relevant experimental data. To reach the toxic dose, you have to eat two to three hundred kilograms of shrimp with excessive heavy metals at one time, and then take dozens of vitamin C supplements to produce enough arsenic trioxide to cause illness. If you really eat so much, you will die before you get poisoned. There is also the spinach and tofu mentioned earlier. The oxalic acid in spinach will indeed combine with calcium to form calcium oxalate. But if you blanch the spinach in boiling water for one minute, more than 80% of the oxalic acid will be removed. The remaining oxalic acid will combine with the calcium in the tofu and will be excreted directly with the feces. It will not accumulate in the kidneys to form stones. On the contrary, if you eat the spinach without blanching, you may ingest too much oxalic acid and cause problems.

If you really want to make a "practical dietary taboo list", don't engage in nonsense, just remember a few core points. The first thing to pay attention to is the safety of the food itself. Sprouted potatoes, undercooked green beans, fresh daylilies, and spoiled nuts may cause poisoning no matter what you eat them with. Don’t blame the wrong combination. Then there is the personal allergy history. One of my colleagues is severely allergic to mango. The cake she ate last time had some chopped mango on it. She took a bite without noticing and was admitted to the hospital in half an hour. It had nothing to do with the half-cent of cream in the cake. It was just a simple allergy. This kind of exclusive taboo is more important than any universal table. There are also precautions for special groups. For example, gout patients should not eat too much high-purine seafood and animal offal. Whether you drink it with beer or boiled water, uric acid will easily rise if you eat too much. ； Pregnant women should avoid foods such as raw sashimi and soft-boiled eggs that may contain parasites and pathogenic bacteria. It has nothing to do with the combination. There are also taboos when taking medicine, such as not touching alcohol for a week after taking cephalosporin drugs. This can really kill people, but this is an interaction between medicine and food, not a "mutual conflict" in the ordinary diet category.

Of course, some scholars in the food science field are now doing research on food interactions. For example, eating some foods together will indeed affect nutrient absorption. For example, eating tannic acid in strong tea with red meat and pork liver that are high in iron will reduce the absorption rate of iron. If you have iron deficiency anemia, you can really try to avoid drinking strong tea with meals. However, ordinary people's iron intake is enough. It is perfectly fine to drink light tea with meals. It will not rise to the level of "mutual conflict". There is no need to be too pretentious.

After all, there is really no need to store those messy foods that are incompatible with each other. When cooking and eating, pay more attention to the freshness of the ingredients, cooking them thoroughly, and paying attention to your body's reaction. It is more reliable than hearsay. If you are really unsure, ask a regular nutritionist or doctor. Don't be fooled by the alarmism of those in the group that "you are not Chinese if you don't convert". Otherwise, you can't even drink spinach and tofu soup like I did before. What a loss.