Complete list of dietary taboos

Personalized taboos adapted to your own disease/constitution, risk taboos caused by improper food handling, and clear taboos during medication. Most of the remaining taboos are either special circumstances with preconditions or rumors spread by false rumors.

I went to my sister's house for dinner a while ago and saw a colorful food conflict list posted on her refrigerator. It said that eating spinach and tofu together will cause stones, and eating crabs and persimmons together will cause poisoning. My niece was so scared that she wanted to eat spinach stewed with tofu, but my sister stopped her. I turned around and asked a nutritionist I knew well, and he laughed so hard: "Blanching spinach for one minute can remove 70% of the oxalic acid, and it is very fragrant when stewed with soft tofu. Even if it is not blanched at all, if you eat half a catty of spinach in one meal, the oxalic acid will not be enough to form stones. Do you really think that human metabolism is just a display?" ”

Really, most of the mythical food conflicts are either small-probability events under extreme circumstances, or they are individual cases where someone feels uncomfortable after eating them, and they are regarded as rules that everyone must abide by.

Speaking of this, some people must ask, are so many taboos passed down by the elders all made up? Not entirely, but many have confused the premise. For example, it is often said that "you cannot eat seafood or drink beer if you have gout." If you are a healthy person, you can eat seafood barbecue and cold beer twice a week. As long as you don't eat enough to cause a gout attack, you don't have to worry about it at all. ； But for people whose uric acid has exceeded the standard, they may get sick if they drink too much thick broth, not to mention seafood. There is also the question that everyone has been arguing about for many years: "Does drinking ice water hurt the stomach?" Some people show off two glasses of iced Coke in the summer and nothing happens. Some people with weak spleen and stomach have diarrhea after taking a sip of warm water. This is a typical personalized taboo. There is no unified answer. Your own body's reaction is more accurate than what experts say. Oh, by the way, the "constitutional taboos" mentioned in traditional Chinese medicine also fall into this category. For example, people with weak and cold constitutions should not eat iced watermelon every day, and people with hot and humid constitutions should avoid spicy hot pot fried foods. If you insist on saying that this is feudal superstition, there is no need to eat it if you feel comfortable, and avoid it if you feel uncomfortable. There is no need to compete with your body.

What is easier to fall into than the taboo of "looking at others' choices" is the oolong incident of "not cooking the food right" on the "food conflict". Last year, my downstairs neighbor ate scrambled eggs with fungus that had been soaked for three days and was admitted to the ICU. Later, there was a rumor in the community that "fungus and eggs cannot be eaten together", which was completely outrageous. That's not a problem with the combination at all. It's because the fungus has been soaked for too long and rice fermentation has developed. Even if you stir-fry it with cabbage or meat, you'll still be poisoned after eating it. There are also vomiting and diarrhea after eating uncooked green beans, poisoning after eating sprouted green potatoes, and diarrhea after eating fresh day lilies. These are essentially problems of improper food handling. They have nothing to do with what they are paired with. As long as they are handled correctly, you can eat whatever you want.

There is another type of taboo that needs to be strictly observed 100% and there is no room for negotiation, which is the dietary requirements while taking medicine. Don’t think that there is an iron rule that you only need to take cephalosporins and not drink alcohol. For example, people who take statin anti-hyperlipidemic drugs must not touch grapefruit. The furanocoumarins in grapefruit will inhibit the activity of liver metabolic enzymes. Taking it is equivalent to doubling the dose of the drug several times, which can range from dizziness and nausea to liver and kidney damage. ； Don't drink strong tea when taking iron supplements. The tannic acid in the tea will combine with the iron to form a precipitate that is difficult to absorb, which is equivalent to taking the medicine in vain. ； Eat less salty foods while taking antihypertensive drugs, otherwise the effect of the drug will be offset by half. These are all based on clear clinical evidence, so don’t take them seriously.

Of course, there are also content that are still controversial, such as whether the "fawu" mentioned by the elders is true? There is no concept of hair loss in Western medicine, but clinical advice also recommends that people who are recovering from postoperative wounds or experiencing allergic attacks should temporarily eat less seafood, mangoes, and durians. This is not to say that these foods are poisonous in themselves, but that eating them will indeed aggravate inflammatory reactions or allergic symptoms for some people. If you have had no reaction from anything you have eaten before, you can eat what you should, and there is no need to avoid eating it just to avoid any effects.

In the five or six years I have been doing nutrition science, the most exaggerated thing I have ever encountered is an aunt in her sixties. Because she believed that "eggs and soy milk cannot be eaten together", she had not eaten these two combinations for breakfast for three years. The last physical examination showed that she was seriously deficient in protein, and the doctor even scolded her for being confused. Really, don’t give yourself up for those taboos that have been passed around countless times. If you really have a chronic disease and are not sure whether you can eat it, just ask the doctor in charge. It is 10,000 times more reliable than the "100 must-see dietary taboos" circulated in the circle of friends. After all, eating is a happy thing. If you always focus on what you can't eat and what you can't touch, the harm of malnutrition is much greater than eating two bites of so-called "competing foods."