Since the earliest days of recorded history, fruit has played a key role in human health. It was the main food consumed in the proverbial Garden of Eden for an untold number of years. During the Golden Age of Man some 2,500 years ago, fruit was the predominant food. This time period in ancient Greece fostered the development of a vastly disproportionate number of the greatest thinkers, philosophers, artists, and athletes in history.
Fruit has always been recognized as a health food and still firmly holds that esteemed position. The old saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” has been replaced with “Eat fruit every day, five times a day,” indicating that the benefits of eating fruit are being more fully recognized. Our government, the health industry, the AMA, nutritionists, dieticians, and every disease control organization that offers nutritional advice suggests that we eat more fruit. Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin, there are people who literally avoid fruit and others who are actually afraid of eating fruit. Some leaders in the raw food movement have suggested that we should learn to live without eating fruit at all. Obviously someone is wrong. Let’s see if we can figure out where the error lies.
The last thing I ate was fruit.
In the mainstream world, it’s not uncommon for people to tell me they can’t eat fruit because it makes them sick to their stomachs. When I ask them how they determined this, they tell me it was easy: I tried that fruit in the morning and it immediately gave me an upset stomach. I’m trying to explain that the food they ate the night before is most likely still in their stomach, and that pouring orange juice or another fruit on top of this food is likely to cause a fermentation disaster, a “combo-bombo.” . I suggest waiting until the stomach is really empty before adding fresh fruit for best results. Still, since fruit was the last thing consumed before indigestion set in, fruit is often to blame.
Similarly, in the raw food movement, the fruit takes the blame for the problems it didn’t cause. Based on calculations from personal and professional observations, the average raw food consumer consumes 65% or more of their calories from fat. Fat is derived primarily from eating high-calorie foods from oils, avocados, nuts, seeds, nut and seed butters, coconuts, and olives. This is more than half again more than the national average of 42%. In a diet dominated by fat, blood levels of this nutrient tend to be extremely high. A high level of fat in the blood results in high blood sugar, since sugars are unable to leave the blood well when blood fat levels are elevated. In this scenario, the pancreas and adrenal glands are forced to work harder to bring blood sugar levels down to normal levels. This causes the organs and glands to eventually fatigue and eventually fail. This will lead to big swings in blood sugar levels known as hyper and hypoglycemia and eventually diabetes and chronic fatigue. Hypoglycemia develops as a result of excessive insulin production. The thyroid gland soon follows suit as it is stimulated by the adrenal glands and often becomes hypofunctional as the adrenal glands weaken. Other hormonal problems, cancer, heart disease, and most digestive disorders are also known to be caused by consuming too much fat.
So how does the fruit take the blame?
Many of the aforementioned symptoms and conditions do not manifest unless fruit is consumed. Unstable blood sugar levels are often seen immediately after consumption of even small amounts of fruit when the consumer follows a high-fat diet. However, almost all of the conditions for which the fruit is named a culprit are actually caused by the high-fat diet. While the leaders of the raw food movement continue to blame the fruit for a wide variety of health problems, I have to agree with them that these effects will occur as long as the consumer follows a high-fat diet.
Avoiding fruit is not the answer as it is not the culprit. In fact, it is insufficient fruit consumption that leads raw foodists to consume higher-than-healthy levels of fat. The simple sugars in fruit, namely glucose and fructose, are essential. They are the precise fuel used by all the cells in our body.
I get really hungry when I only eat fruit.
One of the most common complaints related to fruit is the idea that the satiating power of fruit does not last. “I tasted that fruit in the morning and about an hour later I was starving” is the way the story usually goes. At first glance, this may seem like a valid accusation of the fruit’s unsuitability as a food, but the situation deserves a little more investigation. When I ask about the nature of fruit food, I am usually told, “I had an orange, a slice of melon, a banana, or some grapes.”
For most people, a typical breakfast contains about 750 calories. A medium-sized piece of fruit averages around 75 calories. When we eat only one or two pieces of fruit for breakfast, we are eating only 10-20% of the calories we ate before, so we feel empty and low on energy. Even if the goal is weight loss, this is too extreme a reduction to be satiating, maintainable, or nutritionally adequate. Explaining that fruit has a lower caloric density than all other foods except vegetables, and therefore fruit should be consumed in greater quantity if you are striving to consume enough calories, there is sometimes a glimmer of understanding before that the curtain of the dismissal falls again. “Yes, but how much fruit can I eat at one time? Are you telling me to eat more than one slice of melon or two bananas?” “Yes, I mean. We can train ourselves to comfortably eat satisfying fruit meals, allowing ourselves to eat fruit until fully satisfied. This could mean eating a whole melon for breakfast, or six, twelve, or even more bananas for lunch.” There are three main factors involved in feeling full, and here’s how fruit figures into each:
It is very likely that as a child you heard your mother say: “Don’t eat sweets before dinner, they will take away your appetite.” In effect, she was explaining that fruits are a satiating food, although she may have been talking about sweets or other less acceptable foods at the time. Even a small rise in blood sugar level above the normal range results in a feeling of fullness. The fruit undoubtedly provides the necessary sugars for such a rise, and therefore, it is very satiating. This is why many people initially settle for eating just a small amount of fruit.
Another reason why the consumption of fruits produces satiety is their high content of essential nutrients. The nutritional composition of fruit comes closer to mimicking the full spectrum of human nutrient needs than that of any other food group. In addition, the nutrients in fruit are the easiest to access and absorb, because fruit requires less digestion than other foods. Many of the nutrients in fruit do not require digestion; are easily absorbed. These include, but are not limited to: water, sugar, minerals, vitamins, and many phytonutrients. Although indigestible, the fiber in fruit is soft and soluble and therefore gentle on the delicate membranes of the digestive tract, while allowing relatively easy access to the nutrients it encapsulates. These factors combine to make fruit the most satisfying food.
Last but not least, our level of satiety is directly related to the volume of food we consume. Therefore, to feel satiated we must eat a significant volume of food. All of our essential nutrients can be concentrated into one tablet or cube and consumed in just a few bites. While some experts may consider such a concentrated meal nutritionally complete, research has repeatedly shown that people don’t get satisfactorily satiated due to low volume. Precisely because of its low caloric density, the fruit perfectly provides satiating volumes of food per meal. In fact, for many people who have grown accustomed to commonly consumed high-fat, low-volume foods, getting satisfaction from a fruit meal at first often presents a seemingly insurmountable volume challenge. “My stomach can’t hold all that!” people believe. However, if they accept the challenge and stick with it for a few days, they will learn that they can eat enough, feel satisfied, and reap the benefits of better health.
Fruit is the ideal food
It takes a little practice to know how much fruit is enough for a meal that will satisfy you for several hours until your next meal. It is equally true that a mental adjustment is required to broaden the understanding of the appropriate amount of fruit in a meal. With enough experience, the ability to consume extremely satisfying fruit meals will grow into one of life’s great pleasures. After all, fruit is a healthy food. Anyone interested in achieving, maintaining, and increasing health should consider consuming fruits as their predominant food.
