With major concerns over sugar in our diets, fruit has gotten a bad reputation, and wrongly so. You can call a spade a spade, but you can’t group all sugars in the same category. Along the way we’ve grouped berries, melon, citrus fruits…with high-fructose corn syrup, sucrose, processed cane sugars, and numerous other sweeteners.
We’ve waged a war on fruit and we’re losing out on serious nutrient benefit!
Think about the amount of fruit you would have in an average day and in what capacity. If you’re having fruit roll-ups, blueberry muffins, and apple pies, you need to rethink your fruit intake. If you’re having a green apple with almond butter, a bowl of berries, or a banana once a day, fruit is not an issue.
In fact, the sugar in whole fruit has never been the issue. Fruit is not what’s making us sick! Fruit in whole form (that means you’re in-taking fiber and water along with minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, and yes, fructose) should be a welcome part of your diet. Fruit provides phytonutrients and phytochemicals that can keep you healthy, it’s essential to life.
Our low carb, no sugar trends are pushing out fruit, but historically cultures with less whole fruit intake had more nutritional deficiencies. There is no other food that enhances your functioning as much as fruit.
Notable fruit benefits….
- Fruit breaks down to Glucose, an essential life force, a simple sugar that fuels your entire body
- Fruit fights cancer, it kills all types of viruses and bacteria
- Fruit is also vital to gut health, which is essential to a healthy immune system. For example, the pectin in apples, and the skin, pulp an fiber in figs and dates are exceptionally effective at killing and/or clearing out anything that doesn’t belong in your intestinal tract, inducing fungi such as Candida, worms and other parasites
- Your stomach digests the sugar in fruit so fast that within minutes it travels straight into your bloodstream, meaning the sugar never even reaches your intestinal tract to feed Candida. And second, fruit kills Candida cells
- Hypoglycemia often starts because a dysfunctional liver that’s lost its store of glucose due to a diet too high in fat and protein. Fruit protects the liver by providing the organ with the glucose reserve it needs to order to function and starve off illness and to stabilize blood sugar. In fact, the best way to get someone better from liver disease is to feed them fruits and veggies
- Fruit prevents oxidation-which is the process that ages us. Antioxidants from fruit can reverse aging and Alzheimer’s diesease, dementia, memory loss, and even neurological disease risks can be reduced by eating fruit
- Women can benefit greatly by eating fruit, including reducing risk of PCOS and infertility
My favorite “picks”…
- Wild blueberries are the most antioxidant-rich food available. They can prevent and reverse disease. They are the most powerful brain food in existence.
- Grapes, plums, wild blueberries, and oranges will help you look and feel younger and live longer
- Bananas, wild blueberries, apples and papaya are the most powerful natural destroyers of viruses on earth
- Apples, berries, melons, mango, papaya, and kiwi can protect the liver
The most fruitful way to eat…
It is best to eat fruit on it’s own or to pair with raw vegetables or leafy greens. You can digest fruit relatively quickly and quite easily in comparison to other foods. Raw veggies and greens break down in similar quickness and ease. Eating with a bit of almond butter or blended with one or two ingredients isn’t much of an issue either, although it will be waiting for digestion along with other foods, which could add to digestive discomfort.
Have fruit an hour before or after other foods for ease in digestion and in regards to servings per day, I suggest one or two servings daily. A handful of berries, a slice of melon, a clementine in the afternoon…all reasonable portion sizes.
