Separating Carbs and Proteins

I was reading the other day in a sports nutrition book, that it was a bad idea to eat protein and carbohydrates together. Something about protein taking longer to digest and only digesting in the stomach, whereas your saliva begins to break down the carbs in your mouth, so it takes a shorter time in the stomach. This led to an over acidic stomach or something.

I was wondering three things really:

1) Is this true?
2) What can be considered mixing carbs and proteins (if I have a piece of toast with my tuna, is that too much Carbs)?
3) How does it adversly effect one's athletic performance?


Funnily enough, I was staying with my Granny a few days ago, and she does the same thing. I couldn't get a clear reason why she does though, it pretty much ran to: I think it upsets my stomach a bit.

Well, i think in scientific theory there is probably some sense behind it, but in reality its a myth. There is protein to some extent in sources of carbs (pasta, rice,cereals etc), and also carbs in most natural sources of protein. Seeing as how you cant truly seperate the two, then it seems silly to go to the trouble of trying IMO.
As with all things, give it a try providing you get sufficient quantities of all nutrients in your days eating, but it seems a lot of unecessary mucking about to me.
I will stick to a nice chicken salad baguette thanks.

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3) How does it adversly effect one's athletic performance?

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To answer this, take at look at what succesful athletes do for diet. I'm talking professional fighters, NHL hockey players, and olympic level athletes. While they are fully aware of where they get their carbs, protiens and fats, very few, if any, worry about food combining.

I first read about this in a very popular alternative health-type book years ago; while in theory it may sound good to separate carbs and protien, in practice it does not matter.

Your body will respond appropriately by releaseing the proper digestive enzymes; plus, there's solid sports science behind eating carbs AND protiens together.