Is it better to eat fruit alone or within a meal?

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Eleonora91
Eleonora91 Posts: 688 Member
in Food and Nutrition
First of all, sorry if I make some mistakes, I can't speak English that well. Hope you can understand my question anyway :)

I am a vegetarian and a huge fan of fruits. I usually have 2-3 pieces of fruit everyday: at breakfast, as morning or afternoon snack, or at the end of dinner and lunch if I'm still hungry. I usually eat bananas, apples, kiwis, or make myself some great smoothies.

I always thought that eating fruit was considered "healthy" and thought it was a helpful tool for weightloss and healthy eating in general.

A few friends bought me a book called "The Vegetarian Bible" to get inspired and try some new recipes, anyway I've found it quite obsolete and stupid. There are lots of health-related advices that look quite questionable to me. For example, certain foods can only be eaten with other categories of food to prevent digestive difficulties.

Here comes my question: in this book it's written you should only eat fruit with other fruit, and only afar from other meals. This is what I've found on the book:

"Eat fruit alone, far from the other meals: for the matter expressed above (see food combinations), to properly take advantage of the beneficial properties of fruit it's important that its digestion isn't inhibited by the presence of other foods in the stomach at the same time. From the correct interpretation of the different food combinations comes the necessity to avoid consuming acid fruits with any other kind of fruit during the same meal."

This is what I managed to translate. I don't understand, I like eating fruit at the end of a meal, do I really risk to make my digestion more difficult? Does this also affect weightloss or can I keep eating fruit whenever I want to since I haven't had any side effect?

Replies

  • ArtsyBunny
    ArtsyBunny Posts: 41 Member
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    I found your question pretty easy to understand. I would say just keep eating how you like. I love fruit too, it's great to eat it by itself or with other foods. And you've already lost a lot of weight so you must be doing something right. :wink: (Congratulations, by the way!)

    I haven't read 'The Vegetarian Bible", but I personally haven't had any adverse reactions to eating fruit at all hours with whatever want. I would think that if you haven't either you should be just fine. :)
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,017 Member
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    Junk science. For the life of me, anytime I see stuff like this I wonder how potent the cool aid is. Obviously pretty potent and also somehow impedes the brain or masks scientific data when it appears.:happy:
  • Eleonora91
    Eleonora91 Posts: 688 Member
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    I found your question pretty easy to understand. I would say just keep eating how you like. I love fruit too, it's great to eat it by itself or with other foods. And you've already lost a lot of weight so you must be doing something right. :wink: (Congratulations, by the way!)

    I haven't read 'The Vegetarian Bible", but I personally haven't had any adverse reactions to eating fruit at all hours with whatever want. I would think that if you haven't either you should be just fine. :)

    It's an italian book, so I don't think you'd find the same book anywhere else :/ it doesn't even sound that scientifical. That whole fruit thing looks like bull**** but that's why I wanted to find out more about this topic.

    I've always felt alright by eating fruit at each time of day but who knows? We're here to learn new things :P thank you anyway, I'm trying my best! :)
  • jayjay12345654321
    jayjay12345654321 Posts: 653 Member
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    Doesn't matter. Everything you eat stays in your stomach up to 10 hours. Snacks and meals all get mixed together. Eat it whenever you want.
  • kickassketo
    kickassketo Posts: 42 Member
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    I think the book sounds like something from the early 1900's. But, I really came here to say that you speak (write) English better than many who use it for their first language!
  • Dewymorning
    Dewymorning Posts: 762 Member
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    I have heard similar things saying to only eat fruit in the morning.

    I eat fruit when I want to eat fruit.

    :P

    I advise you to not change your consumption patterns of fruit based on this book.
  • Eleonora91
    Eleonora91 Posts: 688 Member
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    I think the book sounds like something from the early 1900's. But, I really came here to say that you speak (write) English better than many who use it for their first language!

    Yeah it seems so old, but it's actually not... it's kind of new age and I'm not convinced. I'll still eat fruit when I want to, I love it way too much :) thank you anyway, haha :D
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,009 Member
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    Is it possible that the book is talking about the absorption of vitamins and minerals through digestion? There do appear to be studies showing that various vitamins, minerals, and other molecules (e.g., caffeine) can interfere with the absorption of other vitamins and minerals, but many of the studies seem to focus on supplements, rather than food sources. It seems like it would be pretty complicated to try to arrange your daily eating patterns around all these potential interferences.

    Unless you have a diagnosed vitamin or mineral deficiency you're trying to correct, and as long as you're getting your vitamins and minerals from food sources, I don't think I would worry about this issue. Eat your fruit whenever you like (within your calorie and macro goals, of course :smile: )

    Edited to fix typo.
  • Eleonora91
    Eleonora91 Posts: 688 Member
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    I get your point, but unfortunately it's something completely different. It's odd because I've never heard of it, and this book really seems so old, when it's actually not, so I don't know if these contents are actually scientifically correct or not. Anyway, each kind of food is associated to some other categories of food, and I haven't figured out why yet. For example, following the book you couldn't eat meat, fish or eggs together, just one of them at once. You should drink milk alone, and avoid eating dairy or yogurt with other proteins. Unfortunately they refer to some scientific researches I've never heard of, I don't know if this is accurate, it just sounds so stupid to me :/
  • 4MissRose
    4MissRose Posts: 49
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    I've read about this diet too, basically eat only fruits from morning until lunch time, the purpose being that fruits eaten alone are digested very quickly (within 30 minutes) and that their time spent in your intestines are most well spent (better than in your stomach along with other foods) and this is were your body gathers most vitamins from them.

    It's a fad diet, so to me, you should do it if you like it, otherwise just eat your fruits like you do now and don't worry about it. Although I would recommend the fruits only in morning for those who have difficulties with bowel movements as it does seem to put the fiber in fruits to higher efficiency, in my experience.
  • Eleonora91
    Eleonora91 Posts: 688 Member
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    Although I would recommend the fruits only in morning for those who have difficulties with bowel movements as it does seem to put the fiber in fruits to higher efficiency, in my experience.

    That's interesting now... I try to have fruit throughout the whole day, since sugars are easily absorbed and this should help me while studying or doing other tasks. But I'll try to have a piece of fruit at breakfast and morning snack, I wonder if it works for me either!

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