I have been a fruitarian for over 20 years eating mainly fresh squeezed orange juice.
I read in the book "Fit For Life" by Harvey and Marilyn DIamond that
all fruits have amino acids (protein) but not all fruits have complete amino acids. By complete amino acids they mean the 8 essential amino acids that ones body does not manufacture therefore one must get from their foods (fruits).
They go on to say that fruits with 8 esssential amino acids are bananas and cucumbers.
If this is true I am wondering if anyone knows how many bananas I would need to eat daily to get my complete amino acid needs?


Beth

Please don't worry about complete amino acids. This is an old nutrition concept that no ones pay attention to any longer. It used to be thought that all 8 essential amino acids needed to be present in each meal. This is not the case. Your body will pick and choose the amino acids as it needs them, and will use aminos from previous meals if they are not available in your current meal.

Eat enough food to meet your energy needs (that is, get enough calories to live your life) and you will have enough protein to meet your amino acid needs.

Thank you Bryan for your answe to my question.
I am so happy to hear that I do not need to worry about complete protein in fruits since ALL fruits have them.
This is especailly wonderful news to me since I do not like bananas and have been recently forcing myself to eat them because I thought I needed to have them.
Beth

Beth, if I understand you right, you have been fruitarian for over 20 years and are wondering about protein now?? That's quite interesting :O)

Ha! ha! Yes. It seems like if you've been doing it for 20 years....you're probably doing ok!

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Yes Tanawana
I have been a fruitarian for over 20 years.
The reason I am thinking that I amy not be getting enough protein NOW is because I went to a doctor who did a meridian stress assessment test
and he said I had Lyme disease (BB infection), EBV, and candida infection.
He said the reason I was ill was that my immune system was down due to lack of protein.
I followed his diet for 2 years (Eat Right for Your Blood Type) and my
lipid levels sky rocketed. I quit that diet which was animal protein 3 times a day and am back on my all fruit diet.....feeling much better.
Have any of you ever heard of this test called meridian stress assessment test which is also known as acupuncture according to voll.
It is a test that checks all your organs for disease by using the acupuncture points on your hands and feet.
Has to do with the belief that all living things, people, plants and animals give are electrical creatures which give off vibrations (oscillations).
Wonder if this test is a fraud???

If I'm thinking of the same test, I have had this done a number of times. Kinda neat and painless. My Naturopathic Physician at the time was always ready to administer vitamins and whatever if anything was slightly off. Funny thing was, I can throw the numbers off by what I ate prior, which he also admitted to as true. I think it centers in on actual trouble but it is a debatable procedure.

Actually to test it once I ate along with an avocado right before hand and it varied the test. He suspected candida. All the prior test results were perfect with these particular numbers by the way, and considering my diet and eating experiences I had no fear of his suspicions on candida and forewent the supplement pushing then. The numbers were still in range also. Neat test none the less :O)

Keep us updated though, interesting to hear your findings.

You might want to vary your diet a bit, eat other fruits you do like to cover all your amino acid needs.

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

I don't think you need all essential amino acids at every meal at the same time, but you do need all of them eventually (over different meals). If you are eating nothing but oranges exclusively you might indeed lack essential nutrients.

My understanding of things...

Only few succeed on a fruitarian diet in the long term.
It is well documented that problem surface after 20 years.

madinah, well documented where? I am very interested to read that.

What do your fingernails look like? Fingernails are made of protein so signs of low protein show up in the fingernails in various ways due to different types of protein deficientcies.
[www.normanallan.com]
If your fingernails look good then you're probably OK.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2008 06:38AM by Lillianswan.

Oh yes, and the signs of protein deficientcy are:

-Nails that chip, peel, crack, or break easily show a nutritional deficiency and insufficient hydrochloric acid and protein. Minerals are also needed.

-White bands can indicate protein deficiency.

-Beau's lines are horizontal lines of darkened cells and linear depressions. They may be associated with traumas, acute severe illness, malnutrition, major metabolic condition, chemotherapy or other damaging event, and is the result of any interruption in the protein formation of the nail plate.

Forgot to add, that test doesn't show protein deficiency, only the current absorption quality of protein at that specific time of day or testing.