The 5 principles of food synergy

Here are 5 simple principles you should follow if you want achieve the benefits of food synergy and not worry about healthy eating too much. I want to keep it simple because eating is supposed to be fun and it is supposed to easy.

1. Eat whole foods
The most healthy part of apples is the peal, the most nutritious part in tomatoes is the skin. If you want to benefit from the health boosting effects of foods then you have to consume whole foods. So eat brown pasta instead of white pasta, full corn bread instead of refined white bread. Consume all products as naturally as possible - so avoid for example light dairy products and light mayonnaise.

2. Combine colors
Typically when you see colourful food it's also a sign of powerful chemical substances (this is not true when it comes to industrially produced food though). For example the orange color in carrots comes from powerful carotenoids, the deep purple color in blueberries comes from antocyanids and the green in spinach is the clorophyll - all of which are known for their health benefits. When you combine colors you can be sure you are creating exciting new chemical combinations that have the potential to improve your health beyond what any single nutrient could do alone. Just like composing a song, you wouldn't use only one instrument to make a full composition. Equally you shouldn't make a meal out of just one ingredient.

3. Follow the taste
Not all combinations are good - you would believe me if you tried my cottage cheese-red cabbage-savoy cabbage salad which was obnoxious. When some foods taste bad together - even if the individual foods were healthy like in my salad - it's probably a sign that something in the chemistry of those foods is not right. If your taste buds have not been completely disabled by flavor enhancing substances and industrially produced food you should be able to tell healthy things by tasting when things fit together. I think it's like music - when some chords fit together your ear will tell that. It's just the same with food and taste.

4. Follow tradition
There is usually a good reason why some things are eating with certain things. It is because long living food traditions are able to survive for centuries or thousands of years only when they succesfully nourish its followers. People have discovered through trial and error powerful combinations of food and they are just as good sources as modern synergistic relations discovered by science.

5. Enjoy and appreciate food
Food is to be enjoyed and this principle should probably be the first one. Food is not a simple vehicle of nutrition nor is it a fuel that is meant to keep you alive until tomorrow. It is typical that modern nutrition consists of fast foods, meal substitutes and mysli-bars - all that are simple fuel meant to "keep you going". And it's equally common that we see food only as a collection of nutrients that are somehow instrumental to our health. Yes - I do see food as an instrument of health but that's not all there is to it.

The whole philosophy of food synergy is that food is best when you combine it with care - that is you cook it in tasty and healthy ways. Food is supposed to taste good and it is supposed to make you feel good. This is best achieved when you cook good, pure, honest food and enjoy it in good company with respect to the beautiful fact that we can surround ourselves with such wonderful food today.

Photos (cc): phigonggoi, Charles Haynes & jenly