Gracie Diet Tips

The Gracie Diet is not just about fruits, it's about how you combine the foods you eat.

If you're new to the Gracie Diet, we suggest that you start with just one of the basic rules and make it a daily habit. After you've incorporated the first basic rule into your lifestyle, then add additional rules, one by one.

A good basic rule to start with is the basic rule about carbohydrates.

Basic Rule About Carbohydrates

Never combine Wheat or Rice or Potato with one another; they don't go. This means that you don't eat Bread or Pasta if you are having Rice or Potato with your meal.

Corn combines OK with the other fuel foods (i.e., Corn goes with any of Bread, Pasta, Rice and Potato); however, watch out for Cornbread (as well as some of the commercial corn tortillas), because they often contain Wheat flour as well as Corn.

Banana does not go with Bread, so if you're having a banana for breakfast, forget the toast.

Group D -- Foods That Must Be Eaten Alone

Some foods do not combine with other foods, and must be eaten alone. Carlos Gracie (creator of the Gracie Diet) referred to these as "Group D" foods.

After you eat one of the Group D foods, you need to wait 3 to 4 hours for your body to digest it before you eat something different.

The fruits and other foods that are in Group D (and must be eaten alone) are:

Apple (if green or acidic) Apricot Cherries Currants (fresh) Grapes (if acidic) Peach Pears (if acidic) Plums (if acidic) Blackberries Raspberry Strawberry Mango Pineapple

Cider Loquat Pomegranite Quince Grapefruit Lemon Orange Tangerine Acidophilus Milk Curdled Milk Kefir Yogurt

Note, none of the individual fruits and foods listed above combines with any other food or even with each other. That means don't blend the juices of different citrus fruits, don't combine blackberries with raspberries, and watch the blend in fruit salad, if you want to follow the Gracie Diet.

All images and text © 1995, 1996, Gracie USA, San Francisco, CA. All rights reserved. Reproduction, further publication, and all commercial uses strictly prohibited without prior written consent of the copyright owner.

Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is a mark used by various members of the Gracie family of Brazil; their Academies are individually owned and operated.

This page was last updated: June 13, 1996.