Protein before Carbs

iiheartwaves

I went to lunch today and with a friend and we both got chicken on rice. For taste, i like to mix the two when eating it. But i noticed my friend ate all of his chicken before moving on to the rice. When i asked him why he did that he said he wanted to his digestive enzymes to absorb the maximum amount of protein before moving onto the carbs. Is this true? will your body intake more protein by eating proteins before carbs, rather than mixing them together?

MacMadame

I find it hard to believe it makes that much difference. The half life of stomach emptying for a normal person is 90 minutes and, for the first 20-30 minutse, very little of your meal leaves your stomach. So it's all mixed together in there anyway for most of the time.

OTOH, I try to eat protein first, then vegetables, then the other carbs. The reason is that I don't want to run out of room in my stomach before I eat a full serving of protein. I'd rather eat 3 oz. of meat and 1/2 cup of veggies and not have room for the rice than eat 2 oz. of meat, 3/8 cup of veggies and 1/2 cup of rice. Which is what happens when I mix them all together.

missykaye1975

Usually your post-workout protein shakes are MIXED with high glycemic carbs to quickly re-fill glycogen stores in the muscles that have been used up during your workout. In all my research on fitness and nutrition in the last year, I have never read where it would be beneficial to eat them separately. ....and what the previous poster said about them being mixed together in the stomach anyway seems logical to me.