Fruit overdoze?

Lately, I've been eating loads of fruits every day. I'm not kidding, I can easily eat up to 20 fruits per day :-) Pears, apples, plums, nectarines, bananas, avokados, pineapple, kiwi fruits, apricots and the list goes on. I am extremely lazy to prepare food, especially in the summer, when I don't spend much time home. I still try to eat healthy,therefore fruits are a easy snack.

I have read about several rules for eating fruits but had hard time obeying them so I wanted to do some more research. My fruit salads are huuuuge including about 7 different fruits:) So I wanted to know if it can be harmful to consume too much fruit:)

I found a great article on how to eat fruit by Frederic Patenaude, author of best selling book "The Raw Secrets". Here are the main points for the questions I was wondering, in conclusion:

Fruit eating offers many benefits:

•  Best source of the natural sugar needed for energy.
•  Packed with vitamins, and still represents the best source of vitamins in any food.
•  Packed with anti-oxidants.
•  Easier to digest than grains. Fruit is basically pre-digested. Digesting ripe fruit hardly requires any digestive enzymes, and is thus less taxing to the body.
•  Alkaline forming (whereas meat, fish, grains and legumes are acid-forming).
•  Contains an abundance of pure water.
•  Easy to eat. It doesn’t require much preparation.
•  Fruit is beautiful. All of our senses are nourished by fruit, not just our taste buds.
•  People who eat lots of fruit live longer.
•  Contains lots of fiber, which is necessary for optimum digestion.

 

Eating fruit before meals and other food combining rules

Fruit does not combine well with other foods. The reason is that fruit contains simple sugars that require no digestion. Thus, they will not stay for a long time in the stomach. Other foods, such as foods rich in fat, protein and starch, will stay in the stomach for a longer period of time because they require more digestion. So if you eat fruit after a meal, the fruit sugar will stay for too long in the stomach and ferment.

Since fruit digests so fast, it is possible to eat fruit before any other food. You can, when you are hungry, eat as much fruit as you care for. One type of fruit only would be ideal. Then wait a little bit, like 5-10 minutes, and have any other food you desire. This can be a salad, a little avocado with tomatoes, some nuts, or anything. It can be cooked food too.

The same goes with mixing other fruits together. You can eat all the melon you want, and then, if you are still hungry, eat another type of fruit to satisfy your appetite. It is not necessary to eat melons alone if they are eaten before another foods. You can even have melon and then have an avocado after. The only thing that is important to remember is to have the fruit first - not after, and ideally only have one variety at a time.

Fruit & Physical Exercise

Fruit is the ideal food for exercise. The best post workout snack or meal is not muffins, yogurt, or protein shakes, but fresh fruit. 

 

Fruit & Minerals

We should seek out the best-quality fruit we can find. Fruit is still essential in the diet as it provides natural sugars for energy and is still the best source of vitamins.

Is fruit too hybridized?

By eating a large variety of foods, we can still ensure a complete nutritional balance on the foods that we find in the stores.

And the fact that these fruits contain a lot of sugar is certainly not a problem, unless one decides to eat only fruit, which I do not recommend. Fruit sugar is utilized perfectly by the body and is the most natural source of energy we can consume. As long as we eat whole fresh fruit with all of its natural water and fiber, that fruit sugar is not going to be a problem.

With the knowledge that the primary source of fuel for the human body is natural sugar, the concept of fruit having “too much” sugar becomes illogical. The only way you can consume too much sugar in the form of fruit would be to overeat, which is difficult to achieve when eating high-water content fruit.

Fruit and your Teeth.

Acids in fruits can have a negative impact on the teeth and contribute to enamel erosion and decay. That goes especially for the citrus fruits and unripe fruits. For that reason, and also the fact that many of us are prone to tooth decay, I highly recommend rinsing your mouth with water after eating fruit.

 

Eating More Fruit

A great way to eat more fruit is to make fresh fruit smoothies. Smoothies need not to be complicated to be tasty.

Frozen bananas go pretty well in all sorts of fruit smoothies. Try, for example, blending a few frozen bananas with a little water and some fresh berries. You’ll be amazed by the taste.

I hope that this article will encourage you to incorporate more fresh fruit into your diet. In conclusion, remember the following formulas:

Fresh fruit + more exercise + less grains and refined foods = better health and energy

Less fat + more fruit + more green vegetables = even better health and energy

A good diet + a balanced mind + fun - extremism = unexpected benefits

Overall, the rules of eating fruit make me slightly confused but I'm still relieved to know that you really can't eat too much fruit. Besides, I don't want to take the rules too seriously; I mean really, how much harm can eating fresh food cause? :) But you never can do too much reasearch!


pictures: pinterest