My friend refuses to eat a starch with a protein. Is there anything to this?

In a word, no. According to Leslie Bonci, M.P.H., R.D., director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, there is nothing special or magical about eating particular combinations of foods to help you lose weight. Eating only certain groups of foods together at specific times doesn't offer any benefit to you—or your digestive system. "These diets make it sound as if these foods are taking separate pathways in the body—one group goes left, another right, another south," says Bonci. "That's just not the way it works. The body is incredibly efficient and its enzymes break it all down the same way." Besides, eating is really not meant to be so complicated. When it is, Bonci believes there is something wrong with the diet. But on the upside, food-combining diets do offer their adherents one very positive factor: They get people to eat a lot more fruits and vegetables than they were probably eating before. That alone can work toward boosting your nutritional quota as well as your weight-loss efforts. If you strictly follow a food-combining diet, you'll probably shed some pounds simply because you'll be cutting out many empty calories. At least, says Bonci, "there are no Twinkies on these diets!"