Fruit: is it necessary?
Replies
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TheWJordinWJordin wrote: »Cost prohibits fresh fruit in my area (for me). I take a multi along with a vit C w/ flavonoids from Costco.
Why does the government subsidize corn and wheat but not fruit?
I simply will not pay $1.50 for an apple. Not worth it.
Do you have a growing season where local produce is inexpensive? I only buy apples in the fall, when I can get them for under $1lb, for example. Some fruit freezes well too so I always stock up on those when I can get good deals, (I currently have around 20 lbs of strawberries in my freezee that I got for $1 or less a pound. Same with blueberries).
Also stores will do weekly loss leaders and if you're flexible with what you get you can get good deals that way as well.
edit grammar1 -
Fruit is wonderful. If you fill up on fruit, hou are less likely to eat other junk.2
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I agree with lots of veggies!
But eliminating fruit is too restricting IMO.
Berries are perfect if you are trying to keep sugar intake low. And lemons/limes.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »leanitup123 wrote: »"EAT 4 SERVINGS OF FRUIT PER DAY BECAUSE HEALTH!!!"
"FRUIT IS GOOD FOR YOU EAT MORE FRUIT!"
"I'M SO HEALTHY BECAUSE I EAST FRUIT!!!"
Okay, okay don't get me wrong... I get that it's "healthy" because of the fiber, vitamins and minerals - but it also has plenty of (natural) sugar. I eat plenty of vegetables but veer away from fruit.
What are your thoughts - is it really necessary to eat fruit every day? I could easily go a week, a month - heck even a year without eating it.
I tend towards a serving or two of fruit...mostly berries and right now cherries are in season so I'm eating a lot of those. I put an emphasis on veg, but fruit is very good for you and is chalk full of antioxidants. I get a little weary over all of the sugar fear mongering...when people are avoiding fruit because they're afraid of sugar, you know things have gone too far...ridiculous.
I once had a paleo-ite friend try to say that carrots had too much sugar, because they are a 'sweet' vegetable1 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »leanitup123 wrote: »"EAT 4 SERVINGS OF FRUIT PER DAY BECAUSE HEALTH!!!"
"FRUIT IS GOOD FOR YOU EAT MORE FRUIT!"
"I'M SO HEALTHY BECAUSE I EAST FRUIT!!!"
Okay, okay don't get me wrong... I get that it's "healthy" because of the fiber, vitamins and minerals - but it also has plenty of (natural) sugar. I eat plenty of vegetables but veer away from fruit.
What are your thoughts - is it really necessary to eat fruit every day? I could easily go a week, a month - heck even a year without eating it.
I tend towards a serving or two of fruit...mostly berries and right now cherries are in season so I'm eating a lot of those. I put an emphasis on veg, but fruit is very good for you and is chalk full of antioxidants. I get a little weary over all of the sugar fear mongering...when people are avoiding fruit because they're afraid of sugar, you know things have gone too far...ridiculous.
I once had a paleo-ite friend try to say that carrots had too much sugar, because they are a 'sweet' vegetable
That some vegetables are sweeter than some fruits is only one factor that makes the "fruit is bad" generalization pretty silly.
As someone old enough to have witnessed the "discovery" of many essential nutrients - let alone beneficial but nonessential ones - I find "take a supplement instead" Just. Hilarious.
(P.S. No disagreement with DamieBird or cwolfman13 implied by piggybacking on their quotes here. Just chattin'.)2 -
I try not to vilify any food groups personally. And, it's far better to eat a small apple or nectarine than to eat a 100 calorie pack of oreos or ritz crackers. When I am craving chocolate cake or pie or chips, I find a small, crunchy fresh fruit helps me stay focused.2
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I cannot stand most fruit. I especially cannot stand apples and raspberries. They're just....wrong.
I like blueberries, cherries, strawberries, lemons, limes, and the occasional orange. Anything else is a big nope.
I'm glad they aren't essential because I'd be one grumpy eater.0 -
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I tend to eat a lot more veggies than fruit, but don't really have anything against fruit. The fruits I eat most often would be banana and strawberry, followed by apples and blueberries. I have some frozen peaches atm and had some cherries when they were on sale, oh and personal watermelons because they are in season. As for veggies, regulars are summer squash, broccoli, spinach and arugula, tomato, carrot, asparagus, peppers, mushrooms(fungus).1
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FWIW: There's a Livestrong article that points to scurvy, anemia, heart disease and cancer as possible effects of NOT eating enough fruit in your diet.
See: http://www.livestrong.com/article/39658-vitamins-zucchini/1 -
Fruit is a huge part of my diet. I'm about to have my dessert: bran buds, yogurt, fresh strawberries and blueberries.0
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FWIW: There's a Livestrong article that points to scurvy, anemia, heart disease and cancer as possible effects of NOT eating enough fruit in your diet.
See: http://www.livestrong.com/article/39658-vitamins-zucchini/
But you can get all of the vitamins and nutrients we need from sufficient veggies2 -
I veer away from fruit too. It doesn't fill me up and I'd rather get my carbs elsewhere. I don't find it "low calorie". I don't want a banana to be 120 calories.
Sometimes I worry about my micronutrients though...1 -
Chef_Barbell wrote: »I have Oral Allergy Syndrome and cannot eat most fruits. So no it's not necessary for weight loss or life.
Learned something new again from reading MFP forums. While I do not have that syndrome but because of gum damage over the years now that I have been off sugar for about three years eating fresh fruit will make me aware that my teeth are sensitive when I brush them.1 -
Personally I don't eat much fruit at all with the exception of tomatoes and occasionally a few berries.
I do however eat a LOT of vegetables of all sorts and as varied a selection as I can.
I'd say that usually most of my plate was made up of veg although most of my calories probably come from protein.0 -
Give me my bananas, and no one gets hurt.1
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Yep, look at all of the fruit Eskimos used to eat before modern technology & advancements in engineering could bring it to them.3
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Fruits should essentially be treated like candy because of the sugar content, and only consumed when locally available in season and properly ripened because of the lectin content in fruit picked while unripe to ship long distances.
If you drastically cut carbs, you body will shift to burning ketones (which is MUCH easier on your mitochondria) and that will trigger fat burning. I can tell you from my own personal experience having gone full keto this past week and a half, I feel a steady sense of energy, started losing a lb a day, and I feel satiated with little to no snacking and I don't miss the carbs one bit.
I decided to try this for a few reasons. The first is I wanted to cut out all grains, legumes and nightshades due to the dangerous lectins they contain. That right there cuts out a huge source if calories in our western diet. What was I going to replace them with?
The 2nd was finding a way to fix a problem my mitochondria have. For the last 11 years, something has been very wrong. At times its been like having fibro, chronic fatigue syndrome and MS all rolled into one. 2 years ago, I found some phenomenal research by Dr Sinclair at Harvard in life extension involving NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) a special and VERY expensive form of Vit B3 and 2 year old mice. By giving the mice NMN he hoped to raise NAD+ and thus increase mitochondrial output and utilization of ATP, the energy our cells run on, to youthful levels, and by doing so actually reverse aging. Research in this area is leading researchers to conclude that all disease and even aging itself, is, at the root, caused by mitochondrial dysfunction. They have even started calling aging a disease.
A week after he gave them this compound, he checked their cellular age markers and they now essentially had the cells of 6 month old mice. NR (nicotinamide riboside) is the precursor of NMN and has a similar effect. It is only available under the name Niagen. I decided to try the Niagen and with the very first dose I felt like someone had plugged me into a nuclear power plant. I was up walking with little difficulty and doing things that had been very difficult to impossible for the previous 9 years. But as soon as it wore off, my symptoms would come crashing back in. So I have been very dependent on Niagen on a daily basis.
However, I recently learned that eating a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables year round can actually exhaust our mitochondria over the years as turning glucose into ATP us harder for mitochondria than using ketones to make ATP. In the last 50 years or so we went from a cyclic diet to one in which summer foods are available all year round.
So I decided to try the keto diet and see what happens. It's been a week and a half and I have grown less and less dependent on the Niagen for energy. I wake up in the morning with energy and feeling stable and strong.
(And yes, I am seeing signs of age reversal too.
)
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I said above that fruit is not necessary, and I still think that (assuming you get adequate vegetables, of course), but for myself I added fruit back in because there's so much wonderful fruit in the summer (after a LCHF experiment), and was surprised at how positive the effect on my mood and how well I feel is. I didn't feel bad before, but I do feel better now.2
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I always find it interesting when people claim being in keto is somehow easier on your body in some way. You'd think your body wouldn't only go keto when it absolutely has to if that was the case. You know, what with evolution and survival and stuff.13
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Mice rarely =/= humans.2
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Necessary? No. Delicious? Yes. Sugar is not a good enough reason for me to stay away from fruits, but you don't have to eat them if you don't want to. There are so many types of foods with all kinds of nutrients on the planet that there isn't a single food that is necessary or irreplaceable.
ETA:
Re: @theresejesu
If fruits and vegetables exhaust your mitochondria how come the diets of the longest lived zones on earth are exceptionally rich in plant based foods? Shouldn't they be dropping dead before 40 left and right?5 -
theresejesu wrote: »<snip>
I can tell you from my own personal experience having gone full keto this past week and a half, I feel a steady sense of energy, started losing a lb a day, and I feel satiated with little to no snacking and I don't miss the carbs one bit.
<snip>
(And yes, I am seeing signs of age reversal too. )
Amazed that aging can be reversed with a week and a half of keto, actually.11 -
theresejesu wrote: »Fruits should essentially be treated like candy because of the sugar content, and only consumed when locally available in season and properly ripened because of the lectin content in fruit picked while unripe to ship long distances.
If you drastically cut carbs, you body will shift to burning ketones (which is MUCH easier on your mitochondria) and that will trigger fat burning. I can tell you from my own personal experience having gone full keto this past week and a half, I feel a steady sense of energy, started losing a lb a day, and I feel satiated with little to no snacking and I don't miss the carbs one bit.
I decided to try this for a few reasons. The first is I wanted to cut out all grains, legumes and nightshades due to the dangerous lectins they contain. That right there cuts out a huge source if calories in our western diet. What was I going to replace them with?
The 2nd was finding a way to fix a problem my mitochondria have. For the last 11 years, something has been very wrong. At times its been like having fibro, chronic fatigue syndrome and MS all rolled into one. 2 years ago, I found some phenomenal research by Dr Sinclair at Harvard in life extension involving NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) a special and VERY expensive form of Vit B3 and 2 year old mice. By giving the mice NMN he hoped to raise NAD+ and thus increase mitochondrial output and utilization of ATP, the energy our cells run on, to youthful levels, and by doing so actually reverse aging. Research in this area is leading researchers to conclude that all disease and even aging itself, is, at the root, caused by mitochondrial dysfunction. They have even started calling aging a disease.
A week after he gave them this compound, he checked their cellular age markers and they now essentially had the cells of 6 month old mice. NR (nicotinamide riboside) is the precursor of NMN and has a similar effect. It is only available under the name Niagen. I decided to try the Niagen and with the very first dose I felt like someone had plugged me into a nuclear power plant. I was up walking with little difficulty and doing things that had been very difficult to impossible for the previous 9 years. But as soon as it wore off, my symptoms would come crashing back in. So I have been very dependent on Niagen on a daily basis.
However, I recently learned that eating a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables year round can actually exhaust our mitochondria over the years as turning glucose into ATP us harder for mitochondria than using ketones to make ATP. In the last 50 years or so we went from a cyclic diet to one in which summer foods are available all year round.
So I decided to try the keto diet and see what happens. It's been a week and a half and I have grown less and less dependent on the Niagen for energy. I wake up in the morning with energy and feeling stable and strong.
(And yes, I am seeing signs of age reversal too. )
A week and a half is nothing. But, it would be great it you were able to check in after a few years of successfully maintaining your weight loss and share how it's going for you 2 -
I think you can be healthy without eating fruit every day. Historically, ripe fruits and berries were only available for a few weeks in either the spring or the fall. I eat fruit after I exercise to replenish glycogen and to get the vitamins and minerals but I'm sure I could manage without eating them.0
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TheWJordinWJordin wrote: »Cost prohibits fresh fruit in my area (for me). I take a multi along with a vit C w/ flavonoids from Costco.
Why does the government subsidize corn and wheat but not fruit?
I simply will not pay $1.50 for an apple. Not worth it.
I agree, wait for it to fall off the tree.1 -
I enjoy seasonal fruits. Berries r one item I want year round and pay dearly for blueberries in the winter.
I eat more veggies now so I'm eating less fruit. Seasonally things change, watermelon in the summer is dessert to me. Baked apples with cinammon in the Fall is dessert to me and so on.0 -
theresejesu wrote: »<snip>
I can tell you from my own personal experience having gone full keto this past week and a half, I feel a steady sense of energy, started losing a lb a day, and I feel satiated with little to no snacking and I don't miss the carbs one bit.
<snip>
(And yes, I am seeing signs of age reversal too. )
Amazed that aging can be reversed with a week and a half of keto, actually.
11 -
I love fruit. I have a sweet tooth and fruit provides a low-cal snack. Just by switching cookies, ice-cream, chocolate, cake etc for fruit, I decrease my calorie intake by quite a bit. Today I ate a pound of watermelon.
I don't believe sugar in fruit is bad for you.
Do you need to eat it? No, eat what works for you.
Edit: tasty fruit does get a bit expensive though0
This discussion has been closed.
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