Fruit: Excessive Fructose?

[Murray]

I have been raw for 7 years, and have been an avid devotee of fruit for my entire raw-food journey, stubbornly refusing to believe too much fruit can ever be a problem. But I have recently been re-thinking this, due to concerns over the possible high fructose content of fruit and its resulting blood sugar spikes, and unnecessarily drains on the body due to resulting insulin production. I did once get a blood sugar reading, and it was a little too high.

So I have recently undergone a radical change in diet, where fruit has become a kind of means to get greens in – a base, for mega green smoothies.

I was just wondering what you all thought about possible excessive fructose, when consuming lots of fruit alone. Should this be a concern for possibly becoming pre-diabetic?

Do you think eating greens with fruit stabilizes one’s blood sugar? I even sometimes blend carrots with bananas now, just to "dilute" the fructose. This I would never have done in the past, due to what I would have considered to be poor food combining (starchy veggies and fruit). Or how about adding sprouts to my green smoothies?

Thanks for your support – love this forum!

[RawHealthyBeauty]

Did you check your readings 2-4 hours later after eating?
And check your reading first thing in the morning when getting up to see if you're between 70-100?
The only way you can be sure of what you can/cannot eat is by taking your readings 2-4 hours after each meals.

My readings are fine and get a A1C once a year which tells me each time I get it done that I'm in the normal reading that I'm no longer a diabetic.

A spoon of coconut oil after each meal is good for lowering the blood sugar level and there are tons of herbs too that will help with that as well. And exercise!!!!

The way I see raw food is food that God meant for us to eat.

[proteus]

i try to avoid fruit as much as possible. there are no fruits in nature of the sort we have in the supermarket. fruits in nature are small and barely sweet for the most part. fruits in the supermarket are artificially cultivated to be big and sweet.

if you look at wild animals - how many rabbits, squirrels or deer do you know that eat oranges and golden delicious apples all day? they eat grass, seeds and berries and that's what we should eat too.

i buy frozen berries at costco, and blend them with greens and hemp seeds and that's my shake. if i add some fruit to the smoothie it is only as much as needed to make whatever else is in the smoothie taste tolerable.

besides, food isn't supposed to taste good. jack lallane said if it tastes good spit it out. animals in nature are so hungry that they will eat anything they can physically chew - they don't deliberate which kind of apples tastes better - they eat roots, bark, whatever they can. and so should we.

that's why i like to add a green "superfood" powder to my smoothies because it has a bunch of weird stuff in it like various plant roots, mushrooms and other weirdness that you would be eating if you were living a natural lifestyle.

[GlimR]

besides, food isn't supposed to taste good.

To each his own, but this is so not my truth. I have grown food for years from heirloom seeds, including fruit trees, greens, vegetables, herbs, berries,grapes, etc...and they taste completely and totally delicious....definitely good and extremely good for health. I don't think there has to be a separation of health and taste...good grief...taking pleasure in what you eat and nourish your body with isn't a bad thing. I never want to live with such gastronomic austerity.

But that's just me~:talljuice:

As for the OP.........personal balance..........finding what works for you is key...wishing you the best~

[Dimond]

I've always recommended balancing fruit sugar with minerals through greens/celery, green supplements, or mineral supplements. It's really the only way to guarantee you won't have sugar issues. It's also important to exercise daily, usually either extensively or often. This is why a high fruit diet tends to work for those that do it.

Fruit is the best food. :heart: I can't imagine any diet being healthy enough without it being a substantial part of it. Large, delicious fruit without pesticides is being grown in nature everywhere. Frozen store-bought fruit is mostly useless and very rarely raw.

[Murray]

I really admire your austerity, Proteus, even if it differs to my approach to raw food! Actually, what I have started really enjoying is the tastes of different greens, just chewed alone. Kind of bitter – but each kind of green a different bitterness, and a nice bitterness, IMO!

But, I agree with you, GlimR and Dimond – I think there is nothing quite like the taste of fruit! I just need to balance that fructose with a dose of greens, and there won’t be any excess sugar issues.

It’s also true about exercise and cinnamon - both help immensely!

[dime]

if you look at wild animals - how many rabbits, squirrels or deer do you know that eat oranges and golden delicious apples all day? they eat grass, seeds and berries and that's what we should eat too.


If we look at what are animals eating, it make more sense to look at what are monkeys eating. And they eat fruits (bananas ;)), some veggies maybe, nuts/seeds, insects, eggs. Probably some additional stuff. I'm not saying we should strictly model our diet according to what animals are eating though.

[Mikey_H]

I eat food that tastes good... and lots of it.

I feel pretty dang healthy, but hey that's just me.

[green goddess]

If I have a lot of fruit in a meal, I've learned I prefer it tempered with greens, especially sweet fruit like bananas. I no longer have just bananas in smoothies; I feel better adding lots of greens to it. If I go too long without greens, I start craving them.

(My friend and I once did a week-long 'banana feast' of eating absolutely nothing but bananas, as an experiment. By the end I was salivating over the 'forbidden' lettuces and my first non-banana meal after was simply a huge bowl of greens with diced mango!)

So, yeah, I think greens with fruit is an important combination.

[JElay]

besides, food isn't supposed to taste good. .

I wholeheartedly disagree. Food is supposed to be delicious! You talk about berries, well berries are insanely good. Ever go pick wild blueberries or huckleberries? They are so good, just eating them warm in the sun.

Jack Lalanne promoted juicers, so that the masses could have delicious and nutritious fruit and vegetable juices.

I had some very sad SAD food last night and it was kinda gross. I ate it anyway(which has a lot to do with some of my own personal battles with food) and sat there and wondered why I did. There was nothing good for me in it, it didn't even taste good. Then I thought, why should I waste my time eating food if it isn't delicious? I went and grabbed some snap peas out of the fridge and they made me feel a lot better and they tasted GOOD.


To Murray, listen to your body and listen to what you want to eat. If you feel on sugar overload, it's your body's way of saying it wants some greens or seeds. Even those devout 80/10/10 people that eat 2000cals of fruit daily eat tons of greens, celery, and non-sweet fruit(peppers, cucumbers, etc) every day. With Alissa's plan, you have so much flexibility to eat the raw foods that are right for you. If you want a banana, but feel it might be too sweet, wrap it in some romaine and chow down.

[green goddess]

If you want a banana, but feel it might be too sweet, wrap it in some romaine and chow down.

This is one of my favourite snacks! So easy, and a good way to sneak in more greens! ;)

[mcster]

In wholesale, fruits are a good source of vitamins while greens are a good source of minerals so it's important to eat both. That's in addition to seeds, nuts and yes, plenty of sprouted beans and legumes. I think it's very important to "listen" to one's own body and do what it's telling you to do. If you don't feel like eating something on a particular day/week/month, it might be your body's way of rejecting what it doesn't need/want at that point in time. I would also consider your particular lifestyle to assess how much to eat of what. If you're an athlete, you will probably want to eat lots of fruit ahead of workouts for energy and greens post workouts for recovery. Hope that helps.

[Arky]

There're so many 'fun' ( ;) ) posts about the 'too-much-fruit?' debate, if you take a look in the forum archives. Here's one to get the ball rolling:

e.g. http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=39201

There are many, many more if you use the forum 'search' function.

[JennaHoneyBear]

i think that we are humans that have evolved over a long period of time--we aren't forest animals, we aren't monkeys--but i think that's a good place to start, but to say we should be eating grass and berries like a deer doesn't make that much sense to me since a deer is a completely different organism with different nutritional needs. Also, a deer or a rabbit doesn't have access to an orange tree the way a human does.

i think different diets work for different people. maybe some people like the folks at 30Bananas A Day can eat fruit and feel great, but for some people it might not work. Juicing works great for Aleesha, but I can't drink fresh juice, it gives me a stomach ache. a lot of folks out there are advocating an all fruit diet because it works for them; everybody just needs to figure out what works for them as an individual

[proteus]

i think

noooo ! don't do it ...

[Aleesha Sattva]

animals in nature are so hungry that they will eat anything they can physically chew - they don't deliberate which kind of apples tastes better - they eat roots, bark, whatever they can. and so should we.

i've seen bears going for honey and LOVIN' it... i've also seen birds getting drunk on overripe fruit...

so... i disagree! they take yummy whenever they can get it!

just like MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE:woohoo:

[obama5493]

There're so many 'fun' ( ;) ) posts about the 'too-much-fruit?' debate, if you take a look in the forum archives. Here's one to get the ball rolling:

e.g. http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=39201

There are many, many more if you use the forum 'search' function.

i think that we are humans that have evolved over a long period of time--we aren't forest animals, we aren't monkeys--but i think that's a good place to start, but to say we should be eating grass and berries like a deer doesn't make that much sense to me since a deer is a completely different organism with different nutritional needs. Also, a deer or a rabbit doesn't have access to an orange tree the way a human does.

[JennaHoneyBear]

i hada friend tell me today that he's seen deer get up on their hind legs to eat apples from a tree ! :)

[JennaHoneyBear]

noooo ! don't do it ...

Um...what? excuse me??

your post made no sense to me. where in nature can you not find orange trees, apple trees and other fruit trees?? so what if people want to eat fruit, maybe it works for them. just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean it won't work for anybody else! i know people who thrive on eating an all fruit diet.
go ahead and avoid it, more for the rest of us.

if food isn't supposed to taste good then why do we have taste buds ?! jack lalanne was smart, but if it tastes good spit it out? thats so ridiculous to me.

i like this lalanne quote better: "exercise is king, nutrition is queen, put them together and you've got a kingdom"

ps. we are not wild animals anymore, we are domesticated humans, and we can eat as such.

[proteus]

if food isn't supposed to taste good then why do we have taste buds ?

you have to consider that our environment has changed since the times our genes evolved. just because something used to be a good idea 100,000 years ago doesn't mean that it is today.

humans were never supposed to live past about age 18. you grow, reproduce and die. it is hard in a natural environment to develop diabetes by the age of 18 when you are at the same time growing and exercising 5 hours a day.

but when you're not growing and not exercising that's when the question becomes - where is the sugar supposed to go ? into diabetes !

besides, if you look at the paintings in those ancient caves you don't see too many depictions of bananas, grapes or golden delicious apples. just because apes today have such a luxury doesn't mean that our ancestors did. even if they had access to fruit they didn't have access to an abundance of extremely sweet fruit as we do now.

all the evidence points to the fact that humans can NOT handle an infinite amount of sugar for an indefinite period of time. we can handle it for a while but overtime we develop insulin resistance.

things like butter used to be considered healthy too back when people were all wafer thin and hungry, but now that we are all 300 pounds we know it is deadly. fruit is no different.

taste buds evolved as a response to food scarcity in environment to detect minute levels of sugar in foods such as leaves etc. today we have a food industry evolved around our taste buds supplying you with selectively bred huge ultra sweet fruit. it is going to take another 10,000 years before our taste buts re-evolve to deal with 30 cubic foot refrigerators.

come on bear, stop playing :)

[green goddess]

Proteus, where do you get your information on the evolution of humans' taste buds? I have thought that humans have a taste for sweetness because that's what we're meant to be eating. Fruit, that is, not high-fructose corn syrup-laden processed junk.

An example of taste buds equalling nutritional requirements: true carnivores (my cat, for example) have no taste or interest in sugar. They are attracted to protein and fat, that's it (except for a bit of grass to nibble on). I imagine this is what tastes good to them.

I am not at all attracted to raw flesh, nor to grains of raw wheat. Show me a bowl full of ripe fruit, and I start salivating. It attracts my senses of taste, sight, smell, and depending what it is, my sense of feel also. If I eat an abundance of fruit, I feel compulsion to eat greens, and they become more attractive to me. But it is fruit that tastes best to me.

So, my question to you, Proteus, is this: if fruit is such a no-no, what do you think we should be eating ideally? I'm asking this as a learning opportunity, because I recognize that not one of us is able to accurately answer this question to satisfy everyone else's opinions.

[modernmonkey]

I think food is supposed to taste good. Its purpose is to drive us to eat; a necessity. Just as sex feels good to drive us to procreate. Everything that is important to our health and flourishing feels good IMO.

[Draginvry]

to say we should be eating grass and berries like a deer doesn't make that much sense to me since a deer is a completely different organism with different nutritional needs.

Deer are ruminants. Humans are not ruminants. There is no reason to believe that the diet of ruminating animals has any value to humans.

[GlimR]

quote was removed due to being VERY inappropriate - Admin

This question has nothing whatsoever to do with what is being discussed and is way too aggressive on your part. One is an act of utter contempt and violence, the other a way to nurture and feed the body. You lose a lot more than you gain from a post like this.

[RawHealthyBeauty]

I agree that you could have used a respectful appropriate comparison in the debate of taste buds. That's a really really messed up thing to say!!!!

There is a huge difference in Raw Natural Sugar found in fruits and Man Made Sugar found in man made food.

There is 2 types of diabetes..... the pancreas having problems making enough insulin, which insulin helps the sugar in the blood to go into the cells, but not getting enough insulin to do that leads to high blood sugar (type 1) or the pancreas making too much insulin due to the fact that sugar in the blood is having a hard time being recieved by the cells which also causes high blood sugar (type 2). So the pancreas and the cells needs to be healthy to be diabetic-free. I believe that providing the body with enzymes helps the pancreas and the cells to stay in healthy shape that is meant to be in.

My theory is that I believe the problems of having diabetes is caused by over a long period of time of eating enzyme-less food that causes our body to sacrifice it's own enzymes to digest the enzyme-less food that is loaded with laboratory chemicals which the majority of the the people take for granted. I think you would be good at researching these chemicals and know what each one of them can do to the body in the long run.

So my conclusion is that when the body is constantly being broken down like that to sacrifice it's own enzymes, eventually it's going to cause health problems.... then eating all those chemicals along with it doesn't help either.

This is coming from someone who used to have diabetes who got diabetes-free on fruits, veggies, nuts, and seeds for about three years now!

I was pretty much the "3 meals" typical SAD eater who never had an overwieght problem (125-130), then I developed this problem three years ago which went away with raw food.

Plus, the modern society doesn't move as much as we're suppose to, so we have to go out of our way to move and exercise. The body is design to be on the move.

And supposedly from a Biblical (Old Testament) point of view in the old times, the body is built to last over 1000 years.

[mcster]

There is sooooo much misguided misinformation (not to mention rudeness and contempt) on this thread it's almost funny...almost. Thankfully, most people are exercising common sense. Be happy, be kind, enjoy life. And remember kids, don't let your blood sugar levels get too low. It can result in moodiness and nasty behavior toward others so EAT YOUR FRUIT.

:throwhearts:

[proteus]

Proteus, where do you get your information on the evolution of humans' taste buds?

from my experience cutting my sugar down to about 4 grams a day ( i'm not doing this now ). when i did everything tasted sweet after a while. on the other hand there was also a time where i had to fill up a glass of tea to about one quarter with table sugar for it to taste sweet enough.

in other words your taste buds adjust their reference level to the amount of sugar you have in your diet just like your eyes adjust to the amount of light in the room. car headlights at night can be blinding but during the day you sometimes can't even tell if they're on or not.

i remember when i first got a taste of capitalist fruits back in former USSR. i thought they came from another planet or something. the grapes for example were about 4 times bigger and 20 times sweeter than the grapes i had up until that point. the apples sold here in US are about 2 times bigger and 5 times sweeter than the apples we had growing around our summer house back in Ukraine. and THOSE grapes and apples were ALREADY CULTIVATED FOR CENTURIES. you can just imagine what grapes and apples were like during the paleolithic.



I have thought that humans have a taste for sweetness because that's what we're meant to be eating.

fruits came on the scene of evolution at about the same time as primates. mammals didn't evolve in an environment of fruits. all plant matter has sugar in it because all plant energy comes from the sun and is fixed by chlorophyll into sugar molecules ( the purpose of chlorophyll is to produce sugar ). naturally you want to be eating plants, not dirt or rocks, so just by tasting something ( if your taste threshold has not been destroyed by fruit consumption ) you can tell whether you are chewing a plant by detecting sugars in it.

an average american would not be able to tell whether something like root or leaf is food or not because he wouldn't be able to detect the sugar in it. this would be like flying into the sun and trying to figure out if your headlights are on. the amount of sugar in american diet is why americans are dying - and this is not even debated by anybody. but you could easily have just as much ( or more ! ) sugar from things like apple juice.

your taste buds have been co-opted by the food processing industry. go live in a forest for a month eating roots and bark from the trees then the signals coming from your taste buds will start to become relevant.



An example of taste buds equalling nutritional requirements: true carnivores (my cat, for example) have no taste or interest in sugar. They are attracted to protein and fat, that's it (except for a bit of grass to nibble on). I imagine this is what tastes good to them.

the cat has no interest in sugar because sugar comes from plants and plants come with fiber and the cat knows ( instinctively ) that it isn't designed to digest fiber. even if you give the cat a sugar cube in its mind it is still a fiber loaded plant.

they nibble on grass apparently when they sense a deficiency in vitamins or whatever. so they know they can't sustain themselves on a plant diet but they know they may require plants to cure a deficiency. apparently though it is not just any kind of plant that they need but a particular kind. sugar is a very general indicator of a plant as a calorie source, not as a source of any essential nutrient ( sugar is not essential ). you can't cure a deficiency by munching on sugar cubes.



So, my question to you, Proteus, is this: if fruit is such a no-no, what do you think we should be eating ideally?

what do virtually all animals have in common in their diet ? - grass and leaves. even cats as you mentioned will nibble on grass. apes incorporate leaves into their diet as well. if there is one thing you can be sure about its that grass and leaves became available as a food source before fruits did. grass and leaves are older than mammals, but mammals are older than fruits.

chlorophyll is squarely what drives life on earth. whatever is closest to chlorophyll is most primary to life. without chlorophyll 99% of living things would become extinct in a very short order. without fruits nothing would change, just as nothing would change if pizza or pepsi suddenly were completely gone.

[proteus]

to say we should be eating grass and berries like a deer doesn't make that much sense to me since a deer is a completely different organism with different nutritional needs.

the only real difference between humans and deer is they have a greater capacity for processing food. we can enhance our capacity with a juicer and/or blender.

it's not like if something is poison to a deer than it is completely fine for humans or vice versa.

the difference is that deer use the power of their intestines to process low nutritional density food and humans use the power of their minds to obtain food of high nutritional density.

you know why cows and sheep are so dumb ? they use low energy density food so they must conserve energy by not thinking or moving. it works the same in human society - you have these dumb, lazy cattle / sheep for the most of the population and a small pack of wolves preying on us - we call them bankers and politicians. they love uppers like cocaine while we love downers like beer and hot dogs. Just because Geithner doesn't eat hot dogs doesn't mean his nutritional requirements are different from a 300 pound swine at a football game.

SAD diet would kill a Deer just as it kills Humans :)

there may be some minor differences on the cellular level such as for example some animals can produce their own vitamin C, while humans can't but in the grand scheme of things we're much more similar than different ( biologically ).

[sport]

Proteus, I do think that you are very amusing.

[proteus]

This is coming from someone who used to have diabetes who got diabetes-free on fruits, veggies, nuts, and seeds for about three years now!

I was pretty much the "3 meals" typical SAD eater who never had an overwieght problem (125-130), then I developed this problem three years ago which went away with raw food.

would you say that your total sugar and total calorie intake is still the same ? have you started to exercise more ? are you consuming more fiber now ?

[Stina]

Okay, I just thumped everyone over the head with my magic wand.

Alright, back into the pool all of you!

[sport]

I hear what is being said about the fact that we may not remain doing this long term and may want to change our diets as we progress but right now I feel that lots of fruit is right for me and what I need to be doing.
My blood sugar is within the normal range and I have read of lots of fruit nuts (like me) having been tested at various stages after stuffing themselves with bananas and they did not experience a sugar spike.

[green goddess]

As for fruit changing in the past centuries, I suppose one could argue that supermarket greens have changed, been hybridized, as well. I don't tend to find heads of butterleaf lettuce growing in the wild! Thus, if humans are meant ideally to eat 'leaves and greens', we wouldn't be turning to the grocery store, we'd be foraging in the wild, and getting more nutritionally-dense greenery. But how convenient is this for most city-dwelling people?

There are groups of people that swear by a high-fat, high-protein raw veganism, and groups that swear by a high-fruit, low-fat raw veganism. I tend to lean more towards the fruit camp, just because I've found I feel better from eating it than from eating lots of nuts and avos. This doesn't mean I'm right, or wrong, or that anyone else is right or wrong.

Fruit seems very natural to me, it makes sense that it's what we're anatomically designed for (our hands perfectly grip fruit); but there is something to be said about how fruit is now as opposed to how it would have been hundreds of years ago. I don't have enough information on the (man-made) 'evolution' of fruits, but there are some fruits still available that have not been much meddled with by humans, other than conventional apples and oranges and such.

I think tempering sweet fruits with greens is important; I wouldn't want to eat just fruit all the time. The bottom line is, whatever works for the individual. As long as it does no harm.

[RawHealthyBeauty]

would you say that your total sugar and total calorie intake is still the same ? have you started to exercise more ? are you consuming more fiber now ?

I don't analyze my eating at all as long it is raw food. I eat a rainbow of raw food including nuts and seeds. Pretty much Alissa's philosophy of raw and living food.
Being a calorie counter feels unnatural to me so I don't do it. It feels a little too obsessive to count calories. I do know that I'm eating a whole lot more than I ever have on raw food then I did on SAD food and lost about 4 dress sizes. And yes, I ate a lot of fruits and still do. And I eat a lot of raw healthy fats too. And I eat alot of greens too. I have never gotten so much fiber in my whole life like I do now! And as far as sugar goes, I would have to guess that it would be higher because of high consumption of fruits..

And I pretty much made it known fact that I'm doing P90X here on RFT all over the board for the past couple months, surprised you haven't seen the thread.

In the beginning of my raw food journey, all I did was walked daily on the manual threadmill for the first two years, then decided to take on a challenge to do P90X since last Spring. Now I'm almost through with the 2nd round of P90X onward to my third round.
In the past I've have always tried to workout but slacked off in the last ten years meaning that I wasn't consistent, but I did work out when I had the energy to do it.

Just keep in mind that I'm coming from a point of view that I believe God is the Creator of seeds for fruits and veggies for us to grow and eat.

I really think it's sad that you're sooooo against fruits. :sad:

So what is your diet like since you're against fruits?

I just can't imagine eating all greens and no fruits. It just doesn't feel plain natural to me not to eat fruits.

[green goddess]

ISo what is your diet like since you're against fruits?

I just can't imagine eating all greens and no fruits. It just doesn't feel plain natural to me not to eat fruits.

Yes, I'm wondering this also! What is your diet, Proteus?

[Stina]

Let's be open minded guys. Even if I am a big fruit eater, its true that fruit had been very hybridized to make it sweeter, very much so. We just don't know the long term affects of eating a diet that's predominantly fruit, we don't have precedents. Most native cultures gravitate towards starch. And checking our blood sugar levels isn't a complete picture of what sugar does to our body. Time will tell, we're the cutting edge of this. Now I will go pile up fruit on my evening salad.

[Mikey_H]

Dang I'm really craving a mango right now... or 6...

[Stina]

Let's be open minded guys. Even if I am a big fruit eater, its true that fruit had been very hybridized to make it sweeter, very much so. We just don't know the long term affects of eating a diet that's predominantly fruit, we don't have precedents. Most native cultures gravitate towards starch. And checking our blood sugar levels isn't a complete picture of what sugar does to our body. Time will tell, we're the cutting edge of this. Now I will go pile up fruit on my evening salad.

Disclaimer: I didn't mean to pick the grouchy face. My cursor keeps jumping around! I'm happy, I'm happy darn it!

[proteus]

I was pretty much the "3 meals" typical SAD eater who never had an overwieght problem (125-130), then I developed this problem three years ago which went away with raw food.


I do know that I'm eating a whole lot more than I ever have on raw food then I did on SAD food and lost about 4 dress sizes.

so which is it - you never had a weight problem or you lost 4 dress sizes ?

seems like you got diabetes from being overweight and got rid of it with a combination of high fiber intake and exercise.

[proteus]

Let's be open minded guys. Even if I am a big fruit eater, its true that fruit had been very hybridized to make it sweeter, very much so. We just don't know the long term affects of eating a diet that's predominantly fruit, we don't have precedents. Most native cultures gravitate towards starch. And checking our blood sugar levels isn't a complete picture of what sugar does to our body. Time will tell, we're the cutting edge of this. Now I will go pile up fruit on my evening salad.

right. bananas are more starchy than sweet. it's not just monkeys who are big on bananas - bodybuilders use them heavily as well ( blended into protein shakes ). i am willing to exempt bananas from my fruit-hating since it works for monkeys and works for bodybuilders and its predominantly starch, not sugar.

i would also be willing to exempt fruits that are very high in fiber that, frankly i can't think of a single example of but they probably exist.

it is the fructose-water-bags like grapes and most of the fruits sold in USA that i would like to genocide lol.

bottom line is if your sugar intake is high you should have a proportionally high fiber intake because that's how it is in all natural diets - sugar always comes with fiber.

[proteus]

What is your diet, Proteus?

i am not very successful in following any diet right now, i just have goals that i wish i was able to meet in terms of what i wish i was eating:

~ 1,500 calories a day
~ 200 grams protein a day
~ 50 grams fiber a day
~ 50 grams sugars a day
~ 100% raw

that would be roughly the goal, but i am not actually able to do it. i end up with more calories, much more sugars in practice and much less than 100% raw. i do eat fruits but i feel guilty about it and you won't change my mind on this :) i think more than about 300 grams of fruit per day is too much.

when i say 100% raw i don't mean 100% vegan. it is not, and have never been my goal to be vegan, but it is my goal to be 100% raw.

if i wanted to be a vegan i would certainly revise the ~200 gram protein figure down, probably to about 100 grams ( or 70 grams if i was a woman ).

[RawHealthyBeauty]

I went from a JUNIOR size 9-11 to a JUNIOR Size 0-1 which I am now.

JUNIOR size nine or eleven is hardly overwieght weighing 125-130.

Anyways, I'm so done with this thread.

I know why I overcame diabetes. I thank God every single day for it! And I'm not going to get into a debate with you about how and why I no longer have diabetes.

And for the original poster...sorry this thread got side tracked! To answer your question, may need to figure out if you need to tone down on the fruits and get more greens to balance it all out.

[green goddess]

... fructose-water-bags like grapes ...

This made me giggle! :) I'm going to have this as a visual the next time I eat grapes, I just know it! lol.

Bananas are one of my very favourite fruits. So versatile. But as I mentioned earlier, I'd done a week banana-only feast and felt it was sugar overload, and started craving greens. I wouldn't do this again, except if I ammended with tons of greens as well!

This is my conclusion. Greens to temper fruits. I feel they go hand in hand, and together become a little more than the sum of their parts. :)

[Stina]

Anyone ever wonder why we don't have hardly any guys hanging around this forum? (wink wink juzz kiddin)

[Draginvry]

it is the fructose-water-bags like grapes and most of the fruits sold in USA that i would like to genocide lol.

I love fructose-water-bags! Give them to me :eat

[dime]

i am not very successful in following any diet right now, i just have goals that i wish i was able to meet in terms of what i wish i was eating:

~ 1,500 calories a day
~ 200 grams protein a day


That's dangerously low, you spend at least 500 calories while sleeping. If you're sleeping all day long then this would be enough I guess. And all that protein -- big percent of it will be converted to energy, not muscle. Better get some cheaper and more efficient source of energy like sugars, instead of protein.

[dime]

Fructose being a problem depends on how you eat. Eating small amounts of fruit at a time you won't have problems. Eat 10 bananas per meal every day and you might get into some trouble.

There is a study showing that eating too much fructose makes you leptin resistant. But this was tested on rats, with diet consisting of 60% fructose. In reality it's impossible that you get to such high percentage of fructose in your diet, unless you drink corn syrup all day long.

The sugar in fruits is usually at most 50% fructose, and then there are calories coming from other things as well, so it's quite impossible to eat excessive amounts of fructose.

So relax a bit, and eat your fruits. They are easily digestible and refreshing, and full of vitamins, minerals and energy.

[dime]

And I've just checked, fructose has the lowest glycemic index of all sugars, from Wikipedia:

Fructose has a very low glycemic index of 19 ± 2, compared with 100 for glucose and 68 ± 5 for sucrose
Starch is nothing but a long chain of glucose molecules, thus it's GI is pretty much close to glucose as it's very easy to break it down to glucose.

[sport]

I am a small little granny weighing 110 lbs and I need 2K calories per day. Any less and I will be a smaller little granny very quickly.

[sport]

And I've just checked, fructose has the lowest glycemic index of all sugars, from Wikipedia:

Starch is nothing but a long chain of glucose molecules, thus it's GI is pretty much close to glucose as it's very easy to break it down to glucose.

Glycemic index is not as important as Glycemic Load and fruit scores even better in that.

[mcster]

I wonder what people did before the 20th century when people started counting calories. :rolleyes:

Oh, I know...they used logic and intuition...and ate fruit.

:fruitline:

[green goddess]

I am a small little granny weighing 110 lbs and I need 2K calories per day. Any less and I will be a smaller little granny very quickly.

It's funny how I get perceptions of people on this forum that I don't really know anything about ... from my limited knowledge on your posts and your little thumbnail picture, I figured you were maybe in your forties, and perhaps quite 'sporty'! I didn't picture you as a 'small little granny'! This made me giggle a little. :D :)

[sport]

II figured you were maybe in your forties, and perhaps quite 'sporty'! I didn't picture you as a 'small little granny'! This made me giggle a little. :D :)
I was small and little long before I became a granny and I am a lot more sporty now than I was in my forties. I am fitter and have more energy now.
This time next year I will be in my sixties and plan to be even better and fitter then and I plan to do it on fruit.

[proteus]

That's dangerously low, you spend at least 500 calories while sleeping. If you're sleeping all day long then this would be enough I guess. And all that protein -- big percent of it will be converted to energy, not muscle. Better get some cheaper and more efficient source of energy like sugars, instead of protein.

you don't know what you're talking about ;)

[proteus]

There is a study showing that eating too much fructose makes you leptin resistant.

i don't need no stinkin study to tell me that fructose will mess you up - all i need to do is look at America.

[proteus]

And I've just checked, fructose has the lowest glycemic index of all sugars, from Wikipedia:

Starch is nothing but a long chain of glucose molecules, thus it's GI is pretty much close to glucose as it's very easy to break it down to glucose.

once again you have no clue. fructose being crap has nothing to do with glycemic index. the word glycemic comes from the word glucose. obviously fructose contains no glucose - what did you expect ?

your body needs specifically glucose - all other sugars like fructose, lactose etc are crap. thats why bodybuilders either use starch ( glucose polymers ) or dextrose ( glucose sugar ) and thats why hospitals give you glucose intravenously - not fructose.

the benefit of starch is not in glycemic index - its that even after it is digested it doesn't produce any fructose.

fructose and lactose are the worst possible carbohydrates you can have, which is why americans drink milk and pepsi because they all want to die.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

enjoy ...

[dime]

you don't know what you're talking about ;)
Yes, your muscles/brain/other organs will work on water, maybe this makes sense to you?

your body needs specifically glucose - all other sugars like fructose, lactose etc are crap. thats why bodybuilders either use starch ( glucose polymers ) or dextrose ( glucose sugar ) and thats why hospitals give you glucose intravenously - not fructose.
They use it after workout because it gets into the blood so quickly, that's why they use it. You wanna use a certain window of time after the workout when sugars are being absorbed at a much higher rate. And even then a combination of glucose and fructose is still better, because these two have different paths, thus increasing that absorption rate.

Comparing fruits with milk and pepsi.. yeah right, fruits are definitely the cause for obesity in America.

[sport]

i don't need no stinkin study to tell me that fructose will mess you up - all i need to do is look at America.

I guess that the cause of that problem is all of the fruit that they are eating.

[rawmiss]

About wild and domestic fruits, the difference is negligable. There are two wild fruits that show up in databases: blueberries and blackberries.

Blueberries, wild, raw (Alaska Native) (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/ethnic-foods/9973/2) they have 12 g of carbs (per 100g).

Domestic blueberries Blueberries, raw (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1851/2) have 14 g of carbs.

Blackberries, wild, raw (Alaska Native) [Crowberries] (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/ethnic-foods/8085/2) have 10 g of carbs.

Domestic blackberries Blackberries, raw (http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1848/2) have 10 g of carbs.

[proteus]

There are two wild fruits that show up in databases

two. THAT should tell you something.

[proteus]

Yes, your muscles/brain/other organs will work on water, maybe this makes sense to you?

They use it after workout because it gets into the blood so quickly, that's why they use it. You wanna use a certain window of time after the workout when sugars are being absorbed at a much higher rate. And even then a combination of glucose and fructose is still better, because these two have different paths, thus increasing that absorption rate.

you don't know anything about biology or physical training. i have no time to teach you everything.

go to a decent bodybuilding forum:

http://www.mindandmuscle.net/forum/
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/

spend a few years there, then come back.

bodybuilders don't eat fruits except bananas. if you look at protein supplements they are never sweetened with fructose, high fructose corn syrup or even table sugar ( because table sugar contains 50% fructose ). the only carbohydrates that are added to bodybuilding protein powders are dextrose or maltodextrin because they are 100% made of glucose, zero fructose.

[dime]

bodybuilders don't eat fruits except bananas. if you look at protein supplements they are never sweetened with fructose, high fructose corn syrup or even table sugar ( because table sugar contains 50% fructose ). the only carbohydrates that are added to bodybuilding protein powders are dextrose or maltodextrin because they are 100% made of glucose, zero fructose.

And it's again for the reason I mentioned earlier, you drink these supplements right after workout, and their idea is to make the stuff available for recovery to the muscles as quickly as possible. Glucose + liquid amino is probably the best combination, but usually it's whey as it's cheaper.

Bodybuilders eat the way they eat in order to make muscles, that's the goal. I'm not going to look at how to eat healthy in a bodybuilder diet, or in hospitals where they treat sick people.

We're talking about the everyday normal people here.

[RawGirl4Health]

If you are concerned about your blood sugar, pick up a meter and start testing before and 2 hours after your meals. I have recently done this, my blood sugar is quite low even after lots of fruit. After several days in a row really clean, raw, i snuck in a little brown rice (i keep my fats quite low) and my blood sugar barely moved!

[rawmiss]

I was just wondering what you all thought about possible excessive fructose, when consuming lots of fruit alone. Should this be a concern for possibly becoming pre-diabetic?

Wow 7 years of raw, that's super.

Actually most fruits are consider low glycymic and are recommended for diabetics. For example, here is the American Diabetes Association's page on fruit and they encourage diabetics to "enjoy their fruit":
http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food/what-can-i-eat/fruits.html

"Wondering if you can eat fruit? Yes! Fruits are loaded with vitamins, minerals and fiber just like vegetables. Fruit contains carbohydrate so you need to count it as part of your meal plan. Having a piece of fresh fruit or fruit salad for dessert is a great way to satisfy your sweet tooth and get the extra nutrition you're looking for. . .

Most fruits have a low glycemic index because of their fructose and fiber content. Melons and pineapple have medium GI values as do some dried fruits such as dates, raisins, and sweetened cranberries. Overall, fruit is encouraged when using the glycemic index to guide food choices—so enjoy."

Diabetes is not caused by sugar, BTW, that's a common misconception, it's caused by bleached flour, which destroys the pancreas, or by being overweight or by heredity.

[Draginvry]

LOL bodybuilding. That is one of the worst places to go to get information on a HEALTH diet. Bodybuilders are notorious for their health problems.

[Drexellake]

LOL bodybuilding. That is one of the worst places to go to get information on a HEALTH diet. Bodybuilders are notorious for their health problems.

I agree. One of my sons is a body builder and sometimes they put their muscles before their health. Ever hear of steroids? ;)

[Seductive Arts]

i try to avoid fruit as much as possible. there are no fruits in nature of the sort we have in the supermarket. fruits in nature are small and barely sweet for the most part. fruits in the supermarket are artificially cultivated to be big and sweet.

if you look at wild animals - how many rabbits, squirrels or deer do you know that eat oranges and golden delicious apples all day? they eat grass, seeds and berries and that's what we should eat too.

i buy frozen berries at costco, and blend them with greens and hemp seeds and that's my shake. if i add some fruit to the smoothie it is only as much as needed to make whatever else is in the smoothie taste tolerable.

besides, food isn't supposed to taste good. jack lallane said if it tastes good spit it out. animals in nature are so hungry that they will eat anything they can physically chew - they don't deliberate which kind of apples tastes better - they eat roots, bark, whatever they can. and so should we.

that's why i like to add a green "superfood" powder to my smoothies because it has a bunch of weird stuff in it like various plant roots, mushrooms and other weirdness that you would be eating if you were living a natural lifestyle.

That is a very poor analogy. Rabbits can only eat certain foods due to the biological shape of their mouth. Rabbit can't peel an orange skin nor do they have the biting capacity to bite into a big round apple that is twice as big as their mouth. I am sure if you cute an orange or apple up, a rabbit will have no problem eating those food items.

I am sure bigger vegetarian animals eat oranges and apples quite well, like a deer. Even after messing with a large fruit to get it open, a squirrel would eat an orange or a apple, but a squirrel has hands to hold food steady unlike a rabbit and a squirrell's teeth are much sharper than a rabbits.

There is no vegetarian animal that will turn down fruit, except when it has the inability to digest certain fruits, or doesn't have the hand or mouth manipulation ability to handle a particular fruit.

Your statement is like "Oh, watermelon's isn't a real food to eat. Have you even seen a garden snake eat a watermelon? NO, YOU HAVE NOT!"

Well, a garden snake can't open a hard shell fruit when it got no hands to do so and doesn't have the mouth to eat such a thing.

Another person on the board with food issues. Not only is a lot of fruit hybrids today, but so are many vegetables. You are gonna stop eating them too? As much as we would all like to think we can get non-GMO foods, but the sad fact is most foods produced around the world, whether vegetables, grains, fruits and animals have been genetically engineered since the Industrial Revolution. Unless you are buying and only eating heirlooms, you may as well munch on air for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And guess what, air got pollution in it, so well I guess you are out of luck. May as well commit to dying in order to stay so "pure" and "original", because nothing in our food source has been untouched by human hands in over 75 years.

[Seductive Arts]

That's dangerously low, you spend at least 500 calories while sleeping. If you're sleeping all day long then this would be enough I guess. And all that protein -- big percent of it will be converted to energy, not muscle. Better get some cheaper and more efficient source of energy like sugars, instead of protein.

That is not dangerously, Most people around the world eat that much in calories. It is only Americans, who weigh more than they need to, who delusionally believe that any diet under 2000 is starvation. No wonder Americans are so damn fat, if they think 2000 calories is the lower end of a normal daily diet.

I've traveled to Europe and Africa, and I will say that a 1000 to 1400 calories a day is quite standard on average. I am sure the same can be vouched in Asia as well.

Plus it has been medically proven that a calorie restrictive diet, or countries where people eat a caloric restrictive diet, helps people live longer and live healthy. Below 1000 is getting dangerous. Above 1500 gets dangerous as well, since many diabetics,people who are overweight, people with stroke, heart attacks, cancers and so forth eat a daily intake of 1500 plus a day. That is why the United States have all these illnesses and diseases, because we eat too damn much. More than what our body needs. We suffer from disease of OVERNUTRITION, not malnourishment.

[Seductive Arts]

I agree. One of my sons is a body builder and sometimes they put their muscles before their health. Ever hear of steroids? ;)

So true. Unless someone is a non-steroids bodybuilder, and I know that they are, I am not interested in what bodybuilders do. Because steroids is cheating. Not to say that they don't put in the physical work to get those muscles, because I know that they do work hard....but the fact is those muscles wouldn't be as big as they are if it wasn't for steroids.

[Drexellake]

Great points but I don't think you needed to even go there. It's obvious these posts were reaching and grasping at something that simply is not there. :throwhearts:

[dime]

I've traveled to Europe and Africa, and I will say that a 1000 to 1400 calories a day is quite standard on average. I am sure the same can be vouched in Asia as well.
Not sure about Africa, but this is definitely not the case with Europe :) I was born, live and been through most of Europe.
Yes you can live on that much calories somehow, and it should be enough if you're 40kg. But you can live much better on some more energy. Remember your running problems? That's nothing else but lack of energy.


Plus it has been medically proven that a calorie restrictive diet, or countries where people eat a caloric restrictive diet, helps people live longer and live healthy. Below 1000 is getting dangerous. Above 1500 gets dangerous as well, since many diabetics,people who are overweight, people with stroke, heart attacks, cancers and so forth eat a daily intake of 1500 plus a day. That is why the United States have all these illnesses and diseases, because we eat too damn much. More than what our body needs. We suffer from disease of OVERNUTRITION, not malnourishment.
You can restrict the calories as much as you want in a standard diet, it won't make you any healthier. The problem is not eating too much, it's how you get the calories.

[modernmonkey]

That is a very poor analogy. Rabbits can only eat certain foods due to the biological shape of their mouth. Rabbit can't peel an orange skin nor do they have the biting capacity to bite into a big round apple that is twice as big as their mouth. I am sure if you cute an orange or apple up, a rabbit will have no problem eating those food items.

I am sure bigger vegetarian animals eat oranges and apples quite well, like a deer. Even after messing with a large fruit to get it open, a squirrel would eat an orange or a apple, but a squirrel has hands to hold food steady unlike a rabbit and a squirrell's teeth are much sharper than a rabbits.

There is no vegetarian animal that will turn down fruit, except when it has the inability to digest certain fruits, or doesn't have the hand or mouth manipulation ability to handle a particular fruit.

Your statement is like "Oh, watermelon's isn't a real food to eat. Have you even seen a garden snake eat a watermelon? NO, YOU HAVE NOT!"

Well, a garden snake can't open a hard shell fruit when it got no hands to do so and doesn't have the mouth to eat such a thing.

Another person on the board with food issues. Not only is a lot of fruit hybrids today, but so are many vegetables. You are gonna stop eating them too? As much as we would all like to think we can get non-GMO foods, but the sad fact is most foods produced around the world, whether vegetables, grains, fruits and animals have been genetically engineered since the Industrial Revolution. Unless you are buying and only eating heirlooms, you may as well munch on air for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And guess what, air got pollution in it, so well I guess you are out of luck. May as well commit to dying in order to stay so "pure" and "original", because nothing in our food source has been untouched by human hands in over 75 years.

Fantastic post! But don't be surprised there's ANOTHER person with food issues on the board. We are all here for that reason. You didn't get to a size 24 without food issues yourself.

And Europe? Which parts of Europe did you visit where 1000-1400 calories was an average? Milan and Paris fashion houses?

[Arky]

"Good Evening, viewers in Springfield! - Kent Brockman here;

We interrupt this (very heated) debate to bring you... an interesting tidbit of research cited on Wikipedia":


A study with diabetic rats concluded that Spirulina maxima was effective in correcting the abnormal carbohydrate and lipid metabolisms caused by excess fructose within the body


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_%28dietary_supplement%29


"In other news, scientists at Springfield Zoo have observed animals in the chimpanzee enclosure discarding their fruit rations in favour of Twinkies and hamburgers. It seems the chimpanzees, after carefully studying zoo visitors for many thousands of hours, have concluded that the best way they can accelerate their own evolution is by eating what appears to be mankind's natural diet..."


"AND NOW, back to our scheduled debate....SECONDS OUT, ROUND SIX!" :woohoo:

[green goddess]

Ha ha, Arky! Good one!

Ah, this is the thread that never ends!

So, is fruit on its own bad? Well, certainly not in the sense that a diet of twinkies and donuts is bad. But I think without greens, it would be sub-optimal. I've tried a version of it: eating nothing but bananas for a week. I really felt like I needed greens to go along with the fruit. I think I could be quite happy doing another banana-only week, except only with the addition of all the greens I want.

In nature, monkeys have apparently been observed wrapping their fruit in leaves to consume. They don't eat 100% fruit. Yes, they also eat insects and icky things that we humans don't choose to touch in this day and age, but they don't exclude greenery in favour of fruit. They combine the two.

But then, excluding anything (in the whole, natural food world) in favour of a different food type doesn't seem to be great. All fruit and no greens? Nah. All veggies and no fruits? Nope. Lotsa nuts and seeds but no vegetables? Nada.

Why be dogmatic about raw foods, and what 'should' be best? Eat what makes you feel best. I feel best with lots of fruit and greens and a smaller amount of veggies and some nuts/seeds/avocadoes. Balance.