Foods that should not be consumed together can be broadly categorized into two types: one type involves foods that react when eaten together, causing the loss of nutrients. However, since these foods do not harm the body, their combined consumption is often not easily detected. The other type involves foods that react to produce toxins or substances that severely irritate the body, causing direct harm and symptoms such as diarrhea or headaches.
Below is a summary of incompatible food combinations: foods that should not be consumed together. However, they can be eaten separately—consume one food, wait at least four hours, then eat the other.
(1) Vegetables
Daikon Radish: Strictly avoid consuming with oranges, as this combination may cause goiter. Daikon should also not be eaten with fruits like apples, pears, or grapes. Avoid mixing it with Polygonum multiflorum or Rehmannia glutinosa. Refrain from eating radish while taking ginseng.Best consumed alone or with meat. Avoid pairing with tomatoes, peppers, pomegranates, or papayas, as carrot enzymes can deplete vitamins in these fruits and vegetables.
Sweet Potatoes: Avoid consuming with persimmons, as this combination forms insoluble lumps causing stomach bloating, abdominal pain, vomiting, and potentially life-threatening complications.
Bamboo Shoots: Do not consume with tofu, as this may promote stone formation. Also avoid pairing with sugar.
Pumpkin: Do not consume with lamb, as this may cause jaundice.Bamboo shoots: Avoid pairing bamboo shoots with tofu, as this combination may promote stone formation; also avoid consuming them with sugar. Pumpkin: Do not consume pumpkin with mutton, as this may cause jaundice and beriberi. Celery: Avoid eating celery with vinegar, as this can damage teeth.
Soy Milk: Avoid consuming with spinach or milk. Never mix soy milk with raw eggs.
Green Onions: Avoid pairing with bayberries or honey, as this may cause chest tightness. Also avoid combining with jujubes or rehmannia root.
Garlic: Generally incompatible with tonic herbs. Avoid mixing with honey, polygonum multiflorum, or rehmannia root.
Cucumber: Avoid eating with peanuts, as this combination harms the spleen. (2) Meat
Pork: Avoid eating with quail, as this combination darkens the complexion. Avoid eating with pigeon meat, crucian carp, or shrimp, as this combination causes stagnant qi.
Lard: Avoid consuming with plums.
Pig's blood: Avoid consuming with soybeans, as it may cause qi stagnation. Avoid consuming with Rehmannia root or Polygonum multiflorum.
Pig liver: Avoid consuming with soybeans or tofu. Avoid consuming with fish meat.
Mutton: Avoid consuming with pumpkin, soy milk, cheese, fermented dried vegetables, or red beans.
Beef: Avoid consuming with fish, chestnuts, millet, or honey.
Dog meat: Avoid consuming with mung beans, water chestnuts, carp, or almonds.
Duck meat: Avoid consuming with wood ear mushrooms, walnuts, or turtle meat.
Goose meat: Avoid consuming with pear.
Rabbit meat: Should not be cooked with ginger, nor consumed with chicken, bok choy, mustard greens, or tangerine peel.
Turtle meat: Should not be consumed with chicken, duck, rabbit, or amaranth. It is suitable to eat with persimmons. However, consuming them together can form insoluble hard lumps, causing stomach bloating, abdominal pain, vomiting, and in severe cases, may lead to life-threatening conditions.
Bamboo shoots: Avoid consuming bamboo shoots with tofu, as this combination may promote stone formation. Also avoid pairing with sugar.
Pumpkin: Do not consume pumpkin with mutton, as this may cause jaundice and beriberi.
Celery: Avoid eating celery with vinegar, as this may damage teeth.
Soy Milk: Avoid consuming with spinach or milk. Never mix soy milk with raw eggs.
Green Onions: Avoid pairing with bayberries or honey, as this may cause chest tightness. Also avoid combining with jujubes or rehmannia root.
Garlic: Generally incompatible with tonic herbs. Avoid mixing with honey, polygonum multiflorum, or rehmannia root.
Cucumber: Avoid consuming with peanuts, as this combination harms the spleen.
(2) Meat
Pork: Avoid consuming with quail, as this combination darkens the complexion. Avoid consuming with pigeon meat, crucian carp, or shrimp, as this combination causes stagnant qi.
Lard: Avoid consuming with plums.
Pig's blood: Avoid consuming with soybeans, as it may cause qi stagnation. Avoid consuming with rehmannia root or polygonum multiflorum.
Pig liver: Avoid consuming with soybeans or tofu. Avoid consuming with fish meat.
Mutton: Avoid consuming with pumpkin, soy milk, cheese, fermented dried vegetables, or adzuki beans.
Beef: Avoid consuming with fish, chestnuts, millet, or honey.
Dog meat: Avoid consuming with mung beans, water chestnuts, carp, or almonds.
Duck meat: Avoid consuming with wood ear mushrooms, walnuts, or turtle meat.
Goose meat: Avoid consuming with pears.
Rabbit meat: Should not be cooked with ginger, nor consumed with chicken, bok choy, mustard, or tangerine peel.
Turtle meat: Should not be consumed with chicken, duck, rabbit, or amaranth.
(3) Fish
Crucian carp: Should not be consumed with mustard, as it may cause edema.Avoid consumption with pork liver, Chinese yam, ophiopogon tuber, or licorice root.
Flying fish: Avoid frying with beef or mutton fat; do not consume with schizonepeta.
Carp: Avoid consumption with cinnabar or dog meat.
Black carp: Avoid frying with beef or mutton fat; do not consume with schizonepeta or Atractylodes lancea.
Catfish: Avoid consuming with beef liver. Do not fry with beef or mutton fat. Do not consume with schizonepeta.
Soft-shelled turtle: Avoid consuming with amaranth or eggs.
Sea eel: Avoid consuming with ginkgo nuts or licorice.
Conger eel: Avoid consuming with ginkgo nuts.
Loach: Avoid consuming with dog meat.
(4) Fruits
Apple: Avoid consuming with seafood. All seafood should not be consumed with tannin-containing fruits, as it may cause abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting.
Orange: Avoid consuming with crab.
Peaches: Avoid consuming with soft-shelled turtle or tortoise meat.
Bayberries: Avoid consuming with raw green onions.
Apricots: Avoid consuming with millet, as it may cause vomiting and diarrhea.
Olives: Green olives should not be consumed with honey.
Persimmons: Avoid eating with crab, as it may cause abdominal pain and severe diarrhea.
Jujubes: Avoid eating with seafood, as it may cause lower back pain; avoid eating with green onions, as it may cause internal disharmony and headaches.
Ginkgo nuts: Avoid eating large quantities; consuming over 40 nuts may be fatal. Avoid eating with fish.
(5) Grains
Millet: Avoid consuming with apricots, as it may cause vomiting.
Soybeans: Avoid consuming with pig's blood or bracken fern.
Red beans: Avoid consuming with mutton.
(6) Others
Beer: Avoid consuming with seafood, as it may increase uric acid levels in the blood and contribute to the formation of difficult-to-pass urinary stones.
Tea: Anemic patients should avoid tea while taking iron supplements, as it reduces efficacy and may cause gastrointestinal pain and diarrhea.
Duck meat: Should not be consumed with plums, mulberries, or turtle meat.
Snails: Should not be consumed with melons, wood ear mushrooms, or sugar.
Shrimp: Strictly avoid consuming large amounts of vitamin C simultaneously, as this can form trivalent arsenic, posing a lethal risk. Also avoid consumption with dog meat, pork, or sugar.
Crab: Avoid consuming with persimmons or other fruits containing tannic acid.
White liquor: Should not be mixed with carbonated drinks. Consuming white liquor with soda accelerates alcohol evaporation throughout the body and produces large amounts of carbon dioxide, causing severe damage to the stomach, liver, and other organs, as well as harming cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health.
Health Tips
Consuming ham with lactic acid beverages generates nitrosamines, which are carcinogenic. Fruits containing tannic acid react with proteins in seafood, causing precipitation and solidification into indigestible substances.