Skip the avocado toast -- there are healthier food pairings

If you’re trying to eat a healthy breakfast, put down the avocado toast. Choosing the right food pairings is as important as picking healthy foods when it comes to nutrition.

Writing for the Daily Mail, nutritionist Rob Hobson of Healthspan broke down how pairing the wrong foods together can negate their health benefits.

“The food pairing choices you make will have a very real effect on your energy, how quickly you feel hungry again after eating – and therefore your weight,” Hobson wrote for the Mail.

For an example, he cited a recent Illinois Institute of Technology study on avocado toast. Avocado can help control blood sugar and suppress hunger on its own, but when eaten with white bread, the carbohydrates in the bread mostly negated those benefits. The study showed that fats like avocado are healthy, and that carbs should be eaten only in moderation – and not in their processed form, Hobson said.

Another example: Beef chili with beans. Beef is high on iron, Hobson noted, but the phytates in beans can bind with that iron and keep it from being absorbed. Adding in plenty of vitamin C-rich vegetables like red bell peppers can boost iron absorption.

So what are some better food pairings? Hobson offered up several suggestions:

• Sweet potatoes and Greek yogurt. Sweet potatoes keep blood sugar stable thanks to slowly digested carbs, and Greek yogurt packs protein.
• Oats and banana. Oats are a fiber and can keep you feeling full longer. Bananas are a prebiotic and may help control a hormone that makes you hungry. Nut butter and banana make another good pairing.
• Smoked salmon and scrambled egg. This “double whammy” of protein and healthy fats (including omega-3 fatty acids) can help you feel full longer. Egg on whole-grain bread is another good option.
• Vegetable soup with beans, lentils or peas. The water content in soup can help you fill up faster, and the protein and fiber in legumes can extend that feeling of fullness.

Other great food pairings are yogurt topped with dried fruit and nuts, salad with quinoa, or beans and brown rice.

“[Satiety is] particularly important for weight management as it can help to ward of hunger pangs and the temptation to snack between meals,” Hobson wrote. “Therefore, understanding which foods are more satiating and how to put meals together using them will help you to control how much you eat later on in the day.”

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By Kyla Cathey, Earth.com staff writer