The Tayebat System is built on five staple foods that the late Dr. Diaa Al-Awadhi described as the backbone of daily nutrition: rice, potatoes, dates, butter and sugar. These five form the system's innermost green zone: eaten every day, without rotation or complicated conditions, but always in moderation and only when genuinely hungry. Everything else — foods allowed with conditions, foods allowed rarely, and forbidden foods — is arranged around them.
Why these foods?
The idea Dr. Diaa repeated throughout his explanations is that these five are "natural" foods: they reach the table with minimal processing, the human body has known them for centuries, and they need no preservatives, emulsifiers or additives. Rice and potatoes are easily digested starch, dates and sugar are quick energy, and natural butter is the animal fat the system prefers over hydrogenated oils and vegetable shortening.
The opposite, in the system's view, is "modified" food: processed white flour, breakfast cereals, refined industrial oils and anything with a long ingredient list. That is the source of a paradox many people find strange: white sugar is allowed but oats are forbidden; fried potatoes are allowed but bread is not. Inside the system's own logic the criterion is neither calories nor glycaemic index, but the degree of "industrial interference" as it perceives it.
The five, one by one
1. Rice
Egyptian white or basmati rice is preferred, washed until the water runs clear, cooked with butter or baladi ghee and without onion or garlic (both forbidden). Rice is not a side dish here but the main dish, eaten with meat, fish or cooked vegetables. Rice cakes and processed rice crisps are nevertheless forbidden — a clear example that the criterion is processing, not the raw ingredient.
2. Potatoes
Boiled, baked, mashed with butter or even fried in a permitted oil (the system names corn and sunflower oil for frying, and olive oil for cold use only). The permission extends to "simple" potato chips and to sweet potatoes in every form. The system treats potatoes as a complete replacement for bread and pasta.
3. Dates
Natural dates of any variety are the system's default dessert and snack: a few pieces when hungry between meals, or with Turkish coffee. Other dried fruits (raisins, mulberries, cherries) are accepted in a lower zone, while industrially sweetened date paste counts as processed.
4. Butter
Natural farm butter or animal baladi ghee. The system insists on distinguishing it from margarine and hydrogenated vegetable shortening, which it classifies among forbidden "trans fats". Butter is used to cook rice and potatoes and on whole-wheat toast, and is the main source of fat in the day.
5. Sugar
The most controversial item. The system allows white sugar "in moderation" in green tea, coffee and permitted sweets, considering it less harmful than artificial sweeteners and high-fructose corn syrup. Natural honey and black honey (cane molasses) are accepted in the yellow zone.
The golden rule: the five basics are eaten daily, while other allowed foods follow the frequency set for each — animal protein every other day, fruit peeled and ripe.
A typical day according to the system
- Breakfast: boiled potatoes with butter, or whole-wheat toast with butter and honey, with Turkish coffee or green tea with sugar.
- Lunch: buttered rice with grilled fish or lamb (every other day) and a permitted cooked vegetable such as okra, taro or pumpkin.
- Between meals: dates, peeled ripe fruit, or a handful of permitted nuts.
- Dinner: very light, or skipped when there is no real hunger — the system does not impose three meals.
What does the science say? A balanced reading
It is fair to separate what is agreed from what is disputed. Reducing ultra-processed foods and hydrogenated oils is a recommendation that overlaps with international dietary guidelines, as does preferring home-cooked food to ready meals. But relying daily on white rice, potatoes, dates and sugar together means a high glycaemic load at every meal — something no recognised nutrition body recommends, and a specific risk for people with diabetes or insulin resistance. Banning milk, eggs and legumes at the same time removes major sources of calcium, plant protein and fibre that the five basics do not replace.
For reference, the World Health Organization advises keeping free sugars — table sugar, honey, syrups and fruit juices — below 10% of daily energy intake, and ideally below 5%, and keeping saturated fat, the main fat in butter and ghee, below 10% of energy. It also lists vegetables, legumes and whole grains as the basis of a healthy diet. Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health, in its June 2026 warning about this diet, specifically cautioned against promoting large amounts of sugar or saturated fat as safe.
This article should therefore be read as documentation of what the system says, not as a recommendation. Anyone with diabetes, high blood lipids or any chronic illness, or on regular medication, must discuss any dietary change with their doctor first, and must never stop or adjust medication on their own under any circumstances.
A note on application
Moderation is essential even within the system's own logic; overeating any item, even an allowed one, contradicts its spirit of eating when hungry and stopping before fullness. Anyone who finds themselves eating dates and sugar because they are "allowed" rather than because they are hungry has broken the first rule before starting.
Sources
The system's rules and lists are taken from Dr. Diaa Al-Awadhi's published explanations and his followers' summaries; presenting them here is documentation, not a recommendation. Health information and factual statements are based on:
- World Health Organization — Healthy diet (fact sheet), updated January 2026.
- World Health Organization — Guideline: sugars intake for adults and children, 2015.
- World Health Organization — Saturated fatty acid and trans-fatty acid intake for adults and children: WHO guideline, 2023.
- Lane MM, et al. — Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses, BMJ 2024;384:e077310.
- Masrawy — بسبب "نظام الطيبات".. تحذير عاجل من الصحة السعودية (Saudi Ministry of Health warning, in Arabic), 8 June 2026.