First off, what the heck is a monomeal?
Peach Monomeal
A monomeal is a meal comprised of one (mono) food, usually raw fruits or vegetables. Simple as that! For example, a bowl of fresh pineapple chunks or eight oranges or a smoothie of just bananas (and water) or half a watermelon or a medley of bell pepper slices.
While at first it might sound supremely boring to eat this way, I want to share with you 7 ideas about monomealing that might change your thinking.
1. Eating a Monomeal is Refusing to Alimentarily Multitask
We know that multitasking overtaxes the brain and sets us up for mistakes. Being mindful encourages us to focus on ideally one task, at most two, at any given time. This way our brain can narrow its resources to the task at hand and complete it with thoroughness, clarity, and as much accuracy as possible.
Why would this be any different in the digestive tract?
If we eat a cheese & veggie omelet, bacon, toast with jelly and butter with a side of cut mixed fruit and also juice and coffee…wow, what a multi-enzymatic task cut out for our bodies! Have you ever eaten this and felt tired afterwards?
Different enzymes are needed to break down proteins, carbohydrates, fat and sugars. If too much activity is happening in the digestive tract, acids can cancel out enzymes causing food to ferment or decompose rather than be digested. Undigested food can lead to leaky gut syndrome and a host of other gastrointestinal ailments.
When food is eaten, it is chewed and mixed with saliva which is the first stage of digestion. If the food contains starch then salivary amylase (an enzyme) is secreted. After leaving the mouth, the food passes down the esophagus and into the stomach. Gastric juice is secreted containing primarily hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes. Protein requires a highly acidic medium for the digestive enzyme pepsin to be effective. Starches and fat require a nearly neutral medium for digestion. Salivary amylase is destroyed in the presence of highly acidic gastric juice. Gastric lipase which is secreted for fat digestion is inhibited in the presence of a highly acidic medium.
With so many different kinds of foods going in at one sitting, our body can get VERY tired trying to sort out the different enzymes and digestion times for all these various foods. Some food will not get digested properly causing heartburn, upset stomach, lethargy, and/or other gastrointestinal disturbances.
Whole foods are all a combination of protein, fat, and carbohydrate. There’s plenty of demand required even for eating simple foods. Complicating things with myriad foods is unnecessary and probably best avoided for peaceful and optimal digestion.
Just Cherries
2. Monomealing Simplifies Life
People eat how they live and vice versa. I like to advise people to make their food only as complicated as they’d like their life to be. What happens on the plate manifests in our lives.
Committing to an occasional or frequent monomeal brings you in tune with simplicity. One texture, one flavor, one color and one experience helps you to hone in on the beauty and, ironically, the simple complexity of one food.
Have you ever sat on the beach and eaten a watermelon until you were full? If so, you’ve eaten a monomeal without knowing it. Most of us have.
Your body will receive this food in oneness & in wholeness, will trigger one enzymatic reaction and will thoroughly and successfully digest it.
Feeding yourself a monomeal is an act of kindness toward your body. What happens in the body resonates outward. As you become more comfortable with monomealing you might find yourself more comfortable with one flower artistically arranged in a vase, reading one book at a time, enjoying one favorite person during dedicated time together.
More, in the way of food, ingredients, flowers, books, or people, does not equate abundance. There is abundance to be found in the depths of simplicity because we see & experience the inherent complexity. Huge paradox, I know. Isn’t it great?
Just Cucumbers
3. Melon: Eat it Alone, or Leave it Alone
Melons digest differently that most foods. Rather than digesting in the stomach, they digest in the intestines. If eaten with other foods, melon (fruit sugar) can stay too long in the stomach and cause fermentation which causes gas. Food needs to digest, not ferment.
Anyone who has ever believed that they are allergic to melons or that melons disagree with them, try a monomeal of melon, ideally as your first meal of the day, and allow it to fully digest before eating anything again. Chances are high that there will be no gastric trouble. (This can work with cucumbers or tomatoes too!)
Melons are a beautiful food. Make a meal out of a melon. Yes, eat the whole thing in one sitting! If melons are your only monomeals, it’ll be a nice, kind experience for your body.
Eat Melons Alone
4. Sensory Overload is Detrimental to Peaceful Digestion
When I was eating a high-fruit diet, I was still subscribed to many whole food, delicious recipe newsletters. There became a distinct time when I’d look at the photos accompanying the recipes and I felt that these images were playing tricks on my mind.
My paradigm had shifted.
My body had embraced and adjusted to simple meals. All my senses were on board. Now, when looking at these usual recipe newsletters with new eyes, they looked so incredibly complex. I couldn’t see clearly what the recipe was made out of. The list of ingredients looked so long, complicated and needlessly laborious.
These recipes stopped appealing to me and I began eating in a way that required no recipe. Now, on the occasion that I eat a complex dish or meal, I feel like there is a riot going on inside my body.
A Bowl of Pineapple
5. Think About How Our Primitive Ancestors Ate
Living in the wild, foraging for food, when a tree of ripe fruit was discovered, primitive humans ate the ripe fruit until they were satiated. They didn’t look to combine the fruit with another food for a more interesting presentation. They ate one simple food until they were full or they ate it all.
We have complicated our plates. More is not better. Smoothies with 15 ingredients are unnecessary. You don’t have to “get it all in there” in one shot. The body can really taste and take full nutritional advantage of foods when they are more isolated. Perhaps a 3 ingredient smoothie is as complicated as it needs to get.
Taste the flavors. Digest fully everything you eat. If there is gas, bloating, belching, acid reflux, headache or stomach ache, you are not digesting well. Simplify, simplify, simplify and listen to you body.
Frozen Raspberry & Banana Smoothie with matcha tea
6. The Gift of Time
So many of us crave the gift of more time. Days seem to flash past us until weeks pile up and we wonder how we landed in September so quickly.
Monomealing is an adequate and time saving way to eat. Four bananas can constitute lunch. Three sliced cucumbers can be breakfast.
I often monomeal: cherries, melon, grapes, pineapple, however I more often duomeal: strawberries & peaches, cucumbers & tomatoes, bananas & Medjool dates. Either way is easy, delicious, kind & healthful.
Fruit is the original fast food. Many are ready to eat as they come, others require the simple prepping of peeling and cutting. Take fruit to work or take it in the car. Stop at a grocery store on the road rather than pass through a drive-through window.
Just Grapes
7. Retrain Your Tastebuds
There’s a saying that goes: If you’re not hungry enough for an apple, you’re not really hungry.
So the next time you get truly hungry, go for an apple…or two or five…however many it takes to satiate you. Crunch into the fruit, chew the crisp, juicy flesh, drink the juices then masticate the fiber. Notice the texture change between the flesh and the skin. Notice how pure and sweet the juice is. There is no water more pure than that in a water-dense whole food.
Sit with the taste. Bite. Chew. Drink. Swallow. Bite. Chew. Drink. Swallow. Grab another apple. Master this flavor, this texture, this temperature…become one with the apple. You might fall in love. You may think that apples are the world’s most perfect food.
Now imagine covering that apple up with peanut butter, caramel, yogurt, or baking it. Do you feel sad? Do you feel a sense of loss for a perfectly good apple now camouflaged as something else? Is the beauty of the beloved apple now hidden from your sense? Is the apple now being used as a base or carrier for something else rather than getting full, rightful attention?
Once you train your tastebuds to cherish a simple monoflavor, you won’t need to dress up food to enjoy it. In fact, you will learn to enjoy the food most in its naked, pure, unadulterated state. It may very well become an ecstatic expereince!
The closer you can get to the essence of a food, the closer you can get to the essence of yourself. Try monomealing and experience it for yourself. Give it time and I promise the simple magic will find you.
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{ 43 comments… read them below or add one }
Great article! I so enjoy learning about your different way of eating.
Natalie recently posted..5 Ways to Get Past Your Fitness Plateau
Glad you enjoyed it Natalie!
Carla Golden recently posted..Natural Skin Care
Wow I can really use some simpleness in my life!! This came at a perfect time 🙂 Thanks Carla 🙂
I am SO glad this was right-timing for you to receive Janelle!!
Carla Golden recently posted..Bachelor of Science Degree & Practitioner Certifications
I love this! For all my clients who don’t have time… This is so much easier. Alot of the work I do with my clients has to do with changing their outlook, for example, on what success is, on what good exercise is, eating for nutrition, not calories, etc. This is a great shift. The meal doesn’t have to be this complex piece of the day. The easy choice here IS the healthy choice. Thank you!
Jina recently posted..Just “letting go” doesn’t work, what to do instead + a DIY project before and after photos
I love the way you put that Jina: the easy choice here *is* the healthy choice! Bingo! Thank you so much for your kind comment. xo.
Carla,
What a mind blowing concept! This makes so much sense.
So glad it opened up your mind to a new way Ramsay! Enjoy!! xo.
Thank you, I do this a lot anyway, but just thought I was being too lazy to fix something more complex. Now that I know about monomealing I can let go of any worry that I should be adding more ingredients to my meals 🙂 Yay for simplicity!
Carolyn recently posted..How Well Do I Love My Body?
Nope, not lazy….intuitively smart! Add love, toss guilt. Enjoy!!
Hey, this is awesome! One question though… How can you possibly monomeal on cucumbers or tomatoes? They barely have any calories??
Naturally you would get hungrier sooner than say monomealing with bananas, so you’d eat again once all the cucumbers or tomatoes were digested. Move away from thinking of only 3 meals a day. Eat when you’re hungry.
As a Biology major in college, I can’t say that I agree with this at all–the diet is unhealthy, and the science behind it is just plain wrong. By each reason you give:
1. The multitasking is what the body does naturally. Enzymes exist for major macromolecules (proteins, fats, carbohydrates) whether or not we use them. The brain is very different from the digestive tract. We only truly consciously process one line of thinking, but the digestive system is made to digest different types of food simultaneously. Enzymes physically cannot cancel each other out. Even if “leaky gut syndrome” is a real thing (studies have no evidence at all supporting it), food does not rot in the stomach. Everything continues to be passed along.
2. Again with the enzymes. The body does not trigger enzymes to work, they digest whatever substances pass by that they are made to break down. In fact, mixing foods is a very good thing, as certain vitamins and minerals help others be absorbed. Iron in non-animal sources are absorbed much more readily when taken with vitamin C.
3. The stomach, despite what is commonly thought, does not do most of the digestion. Digestion actually begins in the mouth, with an enzyme called amylase that breaks down complex carbs (wheat products, etc.) The stomach only really houses pepsin, which breaks down proteins. Only proteins. The rest, simple sugars (such as in fruits,) fats, and other substances, are all digested in the intestines. Melons are not the only special intestine food.
4. High-fruit diets are high-sugar diets. Moreover, they are the simple sugars that are more harmful to the body than complex carbohydrates such as wheat. The acids in fruits are also damaging to the teeth in great amounts. The large portion of our diet should be these starches, because they are the greatest source of energy for our bodies.
5. Our ancestors died rather young. Besides the environmental danger they did not have the ideal balance of dietary needs. They also hunted for meat, which is the only true stomach-digestible food. In fact, we need significant amounts of protein to build our own, because we cannot produce all of the amino acids we need.
6. While fruit is healthy, snacking on it often lets both acid and sugar remain in the mouth, harming the teeth.
7. I do not feel a sense of loss in eating apple pie.
The only benefit I see from monomealing is the simplicity in preparation. Overall, it is a really rather unnatural way to eat.
Hi Abigail~ Thank you for writing. It seems you and I a very different understanding of enzymes. While I do not hold a degree in biology, I do have a degree in human nutrition.
There are three types of enzymes which function in your body:
1. Digestive enzymes – supplied by the body to digest your food (amylase, protease, lipase)
2. Food enzymes – contained in raw foods, which start food digestion
3. Metabolic enzymes – supplied by the body to govern your tissues and organs and keep the body in working order
There are three other things you must know:
1. Cooked foods contain no enzymes, because enzymes are destroyed through heat over 115 degrees.
2. Raw grains, nuts, seeds, and beans contain enzyme-inhibitors. If they are germinated or properly soaked, the enzyme-inhibitors are neutralized.
3. You have a limited enzyme potential. In other words, you do not manufacture an unlimited supply of enzymes. The more your body is required to make digestive enzymes, the less it makes metabolic enzymes.
“To get enzymes from food, one must eat raw food. All life, whether plant or animal, requires the presence of enzymes to keep it going.
If humans take in more food enzymes, as nature ordained, the body’s enzyme potential will not have to waste so much of its heritage digesting food. It can distribute more of this precious commodity to the metabolic enzymes, where it rightfully belongs. This rightful distribution of enzyme energy will not only act to maintain health and prevent disease, but is expected to help cure established disease.
If the human organism must devote a huge portion of its enzyme potential to making digestive enzymes, it spells trouble for the whole body because there is a strain on production of metabolic enzymes and there may not be enough enzyme potential to go around.
The length of life is inversely proportional to the rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential of an organism. The increased use of food enzymes promotes a decreased rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential.” Dr. Edward Howell in Enzyme Nutrition
Protein digestion which activates hydrochloric acid can create an environment where the acid renders enzymes inactive. In this sense, digesting different foods at the same time can cause certain foods to digest well and not others. Food combining is an age old practice based on the understanding of enzymes uniqueness and fragility.
Those who have suffered from “leaky gut syndrome” and have healed themselves will tell you that it is a very real situation. Doctors also tell patients that illnesses like Diabetes Type 2 and Chron’s Disease are incurable. They are very curable with diet.
Yes, certain foods eaten together and certain foods enjoyed cooked or raw provide different and cross benefit for the absorption of vitamins and minerals. This is not to say that all foods must be paired or always eaten raw or always eaten cooked.
Fruit sugar, fructose, is a simple, yet unrefined sugar that, when eaten as nature intended in the whole fruit, is very easy to digest for human fuel. When eaten as whole fruit, the sugar is paired with the perfect amount of water and fiber to titrate the sugar entering the blood stream. Many fruits such as peppers, cucumbers, squashes, avocados and okra are not sweet. Intaking fructose separated from the whole fruit does become problematic and I do not recommend this practice.
Wheat, especially today’s GMO wheat, can be very difficult to digest. Grains also must be cooked to be eaten whereas fruit is ready to eat raw. Based on this alone, fruit is a more natural food for humans. Birds eat uncooked grains by nature.
Fruit is alkalizing to the body. The water density of fruits – sweet and non-sweet – aids in the alkalizing nature of the fruit.
Not every meal I eat is a monomeal, however I do enjoy monomeals often. The low-fat, high-fruit lifestyle has helped me to feel better than I recall ever feeling since I was 14 years old. I am now almost 44. I am more athletic, stronger, happier, more clear-minded, peaceful and am able to maintain my weight/body size with ease. I take no medications or supplements.
If how you are eating serves you well then I am happy for you, however I stand by the low-fat, high-fruit diet including the use of monomeals for me and those looking to heal, grow, shift and thrive.
I agree with Abigail. I am a nursing student and this kind of dietary recommendation can be very dangerous. There is no clinical evidence to support a nutritional benefit to eating large amounts of a single food, even if it is a whole food, such as a fruit or vegetable. I wouldn’t advise my patients to indulge in “monomeals,” as the body can’t process the nutrition it requires unless multiple foods are consumed and work synergistically in digestion.
I’d also like to point out that illnesses such as Crohn’s disease could be very negatively impacted by such a restrictive diet. My studies in nutrition, human anatomy and physiology, and pharmacology would all suggests that this approach to nutrition carries significant health risks.
Thank you Dylan. What you and Abgail have written comes right out of conventional medical education. There, unfortunately, is so much fear instilled in conventional institutions. As primitive man walked the Earth (or as our living relatives still do) in their natural, wild habitat and came across a tree of ripe fruit, do you think that s/he would refrain from eating all of one fruit to the point of satiation until others foods could be found? This is absurd! Monomeals are nothing new. Each whole, raw fruit is a synergistic equation in and of itself. Are there vitamins that need fat, of course! Are there complimentary nutrients that augment one another, of course! However each individual fruit in the natural season it is grown is a complete food. In certain areas of the world in certain times I bet primitive man could find only one fruit in season for days or weeks on end.
I have come to believe that 99% of conventional medicine and education knows nothing about the healing powers of a high-fruit diet. Fruit has been villainized over the decades and it lies in a misunderstanding of how fat interferes with fruit sugar metabolization. Most nutritionist and dietitians don’t know this information. For as smart as we are as a country and for all the medical institutions we have, you’d think we’d be a healthier nation, but in fact, we are one of the sickest (with chronic, preventable conditions) of the developed nations.
Dr. David Klein has been curing Chron’s and Colitis for years with fruit: http://www.colitis-crohns.com/
The school of Natural Hygiene has been curing all diseases since the 1800’s with a high-fruit and vegetable diet, sunlight, fresh air, clean water, ample exercise, and adequate sleep. Look at the success rate of The Gerson Institute with the curing (not just remission) of cancer, the success of the Hippocrates Institute, and the good work of the Tree of Life Center. While all have their differing nuances, they are all plant based.
I recommend you pick up a copy of Dr. Douglas Graham’s book 80/10/10 to learn the science, philosophy, and practice of a high-fruit diet. I feel confident that if you read it and understood it, you could teach your professors an important thing or two.
Hi Dylan and Abigail, I know you both have made your case regarding your belief or non belief in monomeals. I invite you to always study your belief system, and always study your opposite view’s belief. Surprises come from always keeping an open mind, sincerely looking for the nugget of info that just make sense in certain situations. Crohn’s disease is being cured every day. There is a biblical passage that states, let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food. I’m a sometime monomial eater and sometime not. At this time there is no intentional plan of action, although I was on a raw food vegan diet for 3 months and when I had my blood taken, by my MD who practices functional medicine, she told me I reset my body according to results she saw. Various foods, including certain meats and fish are also able to heal certain malfunctions of the body and brain. The very important fact of our lives is that our foods here in the US are highly contaminated, and altered. When traveling to Europe, especially Italy, we do not see an obese population and where else would people display how much they enjoy eating multimeals? The food in Europe is not permitted to contain GMO’s and all the chemicals our govn’t allows us to eat. I sometimes wonder. So eat clean, don’t over eat, eat when hungry and be at peace when consuming foods so the body can process it without the presence of emotional stress. Please do your research especially on Crohn’s Disease and learn how the chemicals in the pesticides and herbicides are killing our intestinal flora…..hence all kinds of diseases. BTW if we are meat eaters, the animals are consuming the herbicides, and pesticides too, plus they’re being given antibiotics which make it a double whammy killing our intestinal flora too. As a nurse you will be seeing, if you haven’t already seen, many more people of all ages are going to MDs for digestive issues, and the WORST thing is they are being prescribed the little blue pills, Nexium, etc. that have long term side effects. far worse than we could imagine. I hope you do your own research for your own sake.
I’m behind you Carla. I walked away from 3 doctors who wanted to drug me up until they could figure out what was wrong with me. I became a raw vegan for 4 months and cured myself of not one but all ailments, warts, and herpes, and got off all medication. My naturopath had been telling me for 20 years about food combining but I had to learn the hard way. It doesn’t get any more real than this. When you are so sick of being sick, then give it a try. Check out Dr. Robert Morse. He is the most generous soul on the planet, giving his knowledge to the sick and medicated. I start my day with raw fruit, then raw vegetables, then a cooked meal for dinner. I just recently did a 24 hour dry fast and ended it with a melon juice fest! I also separate the fruits, acid, sub-acid and sweet but everyone’s body is different. When you make it simple, going back to combining proteins and starches just makes it all that more obvious. No more belching for me, and yes, leaky gut syndrome is a real thing!
I’m so glad to read your testimonial Julie. I believe in the power of natural, simple foods (and fasting!) to heal. Thank you for taking the time to leave your story here so that it might help those who are seeking answers for their own ailments.
I personally don’t have acne prone skin, but have several friends that do! Great Article, I enjoyed reading it!
Glad you liked it Stacy! Please share with those friends. Here’s another article that may help them about natural skin care: https://www.carlagoldenwellness.com/2013/06/03/natural-skin-care/
I am very much into simplicity. The more simple the happier I am. I am trying to heal from a horrendously traumatic emotional trauma, and multitasking is just not what I’m able to do right now. So monomeals sound great to me. I love pink/red grapefruit. They are juicy and very filling. They are great for a monomeal. I peel and eat them like an orange. Often in the morning I will peel two grapefruits, cut each section in half and fill a container to take to work with me and that’s what I eat. I am starting Fruit Till 5 tomorrow, Monday, March 3rd. I’m looking forward to healing, eating peacefully without putting too much thought into my food. I’ve shopped and have what I need. thank you for creating this!!!
Carla,
This is great! I can’t wait to try it. I would say I’ve made nutrition my 2nd vocation since the 70’s, and this is the first time I’ve encountered this concept. It makes so much sense! I also read your piece about fat interfering with fruit digestion, and the idea that oils separated from their source aren’t very healthy is a great reminder for me. I also love the idea of spending less time preparing meals. Simplicity leads to more peace; love it!
Excellent Marthe! So glad this is new information will enhance your past research and current practices. Mo’ peace, mo’ better in my book!
I absolutely loved this article! I am a university student and eating simple and quick meals is so beneficial with my hectic schedule. I come from a family of conventional and traditionally taught doctors so when I told them about this way of eating, they all freaked out and said that it was too extreme. But now that I am living on my own, I have a chance to try new things and see what works for myself. I had a huge monomeal of grapes after reading this article and I came back to say that everything point is so true! I actually appreciate the flavours so much more! I will definitely be incorporating more monomeals into my diet. Thanks for an amazing article!
Wonderful Sydney! So great to listen to yourself and follow your intuitive wisdom!
I don’t recall that you mention citrus other than lemon. I like oranges and grapefruit. Is it a mistake to eat these with melon?
All melons are always best eaten alone because they digest so quickly, even more quickly than other fruits. You can try combining melons with oranges and/or grapefruit however if there is ever any digestive discomfort, keep the melons separate in the future.
Beautifully written.
Inspires me to try eating mono-meals. I’ll try this week 🙂
Wonderful Agnes! Thank you for your kind words and for taking the time to read and comment.
wow! amazing loved you did not know that feeding these monomeal juices, even knew some, but was too lazy to do, but now loved reading your post … thanks for sharing
While I do not live with a monomeal diet, I believe there are some good lessons to be learned from the concept of simplifying ones diet to ease digestion both of their foods and life. The only issue I have with a monomeal diet is overdosing on a item. Food is the medicine and needs to be respected as such.
I recommend using a trained intuition to know when to stop eating an item. Personally my body negatively reacts if randomly eat all foods until I am full. For me it is better to switch foods when my body intuition says it had enough of an item.
Yes, super important to listen to the body’s cues and to rotate foods for variety! Thank you for reading and commenting Maury.
Thanx for this great article, it really takes trial for people to believe it,i did and im free now
I’m so glad to hear that you have experienced the benefits of eating monomeals Reza. I agree, people don’t believe it until they try it. Thank you for taking the time to read & comment.
really love this article. it speaks to my heart. I love simplicity and minimalism. It inspires me to eat more simply as much as I can. Thank you!
So glad you found your way here Raschelle and that you like what you see! Thanks for taking the time to read & comment.
A great article, thank you. I have been raw vegan for a month, have had amazing results in such a short space of time and am now wanting to dig deeper into detox and am therefore moving onto fruit only – specifically mono-meals.
Leigh recently posted..Day 30: more sleep and choco/goji nice-cream
So glad you’re feeling so great on your new juicy path! Enjoy! Thanks for taking the time to read & comment Leigh.
Hello , Carla. ..are you still running this site. As I see the last post was in June 2016.
I have started with mono meals with fruit, about a day ago. I am already noticing my stool, changing to the way I would like to see it. I have Ulcerative Colitis , and I am tired with the medications.
Let’s hope i can make a headway with your diet, and cut out medications completely
Regards
Naresh
Hi Naresh, yes I still run this site and there are more recent posts since June 2016. Please use David Klein’s website as a resource to heal ulcerative colitis with diet: https://colitisandcrohnscenter.com/
I like this article but I have one question in my mind. In earth no one food is composed of one or two food components rather in most of the cases all the six components. So, even to digest one food properly our body needs to secrete enzymes for all the six components.
What are the six components to which you refer?