When two or three food substance of different taste, energy and post-digestive effect are combined together, agni can become erratic, inhibiting the enzyme system and resulting in production of toxins in the system. Combining foods improperly can produce indigestion, fermentation, putrefaction and gas formation. This condition, if prolonged, can lead to toxaemia and disease complex.
Let us analyse a few examples to understand the same:
• Eating bananas with milk can diminish agni, change the intestinal flora producing toxins and may cause sinus congestion, cold, cough and allergies.
• If fruits are eaten with potatoes or other starchy foods, there will be a difference in time for digestion.
• Melons and grains, taken together, cause indigestion. Melons digest quickly, whereas grains take more time. This combination will upset the stomach.
• Heated and cooked honey digests slowly by forming its molecules into a non-homogenised glue which adheres to mucous membranes and clogs subtle channels, producing toxins.
• If meat and milk are taken together, meat causes heating effect and milk causes cooling effect, counteracting one another, disturbing the agni.
• Never take milk and melons together. Though both of them are cooling by nature, they are incompatible as milk is laxative and melon is diuretic, and milk requires more time for digestion. Moreover, the action of acid in the stomach causes the milk to curdle.