In June we are talking about digestive health – after all, your digestive system is the core of your immune system! So digestive health is especially important during winter as our body needs to fend off viruses. Eating raw foods is incredibly beneficial for your digestive system because raw foods contain digestive enzymes which actually aid the digestive process. This means that starting a meal with a raw salad or some raw fruit can be a great digestive aid and prepare your body for the cooked food that you are about to consume. In fact, starting a main meal with a raw salad is an incrediby good habit to form. But is eating fruit before or after a large cooked meal good for your digestion? The important thing to remember about fruit is that it digests very quickly (because it is full of its own digestive enzymes). If you eat fruit after a meal consisting of meat, for example, you might find that you experience indigestion. This can occur because the fruit digests much more quickly than the meat that you have consumed and can start to ferment becuase the meat is slowing down its passage through the digestive tract. This can also occur when you eat acid fruits (pineapples, oranges, lemons) together with sweet fruits (bananas, dates, paw-paw). The acid and sweet fruits digest in different manners and eating them together can cause digestive upsets. As a rule I always choose to eat either more acid or more sweet fruits together and I avoid eating fruit too close to other meal times. I have found that this has been beneficial to me. The important thing to remember is that your body will let you know what works best for it – learn to listen to your bodies cues!