Hi Folks,
I have been reading a popular diet book(basically low carb theory) and it says fruit will make you fat,especially bananas and mangoes.
Anyone here existed on mostly fruit for years want to chime in and totally disprove that thinking?
Thanks.

Vinny

Totally untrue.

Fruit can't make someone fat unless they eat so much that they are taking in more calories than they need.

The average banana is 100 calories. The average person needs roughly 2000 calories, more for a male.

20 bananas would be "just enough" food for the day. So you can see that it would be extremely difficult to eat the volume required to overdo it on calories from fruit.

Challenge the Michael Eades and his wife (
"Protein Power" low carbists), Jimmy Moore, whoever wrote the book you're reading, or any low carb advocate to eat ONLY from fruits and vegetables, actually any unrefined whole carbohydrate-based foods, even starches like potatoes and rice.

Those overweight low carb diet gurus would finally lose the weight they struggle with to this day.

The fatest people I have known have always been BIG meat eaters.

i met a women who came into my store (i work at a health food store), and she was talking about her low carb diet, and how she could only eat cheese and shizen. we were looking for low carb snacks for her, and she couldn't eat any of it. i was like not even fruits or veggies? and she was like no. i felt bad for this woman because it made me wonder how on earth she could poo!?

The heaviest person I knew ate a lot of everything. Breaded and deep fat fried meat, doughnuts and fluffy white pastry seemed to be the staples however. Add to that a very low activity lifestyle. He didn't seem unhappy with his body however, he even posed for a fetish magazine. I don't ever recall ever seeing him eat a piece of fruit or a vegetable, except for instant mashed potatoes, but that doesn't exactly count. In highly social situations he is generally very self conscious about letting people view him eating.

One of the heavier women I met is so kind and sweet, really cool. I just feel so bad that she has such problems with her feet due to the excess weight. She says men are attracted to her because she is so emotionally warm, but hates the fact that every single one of them is concerned for her weight. She adores pastry, refined pasta, cheese of all types. She doesn't eat meat of any sort. I don't ever remember her mentioning much about vegetables, except that she doesn't like dieting, eating salads etc... says it doesn't fill her up enough. She doesn't think that a fruit centered diet is enough to met ones needs.

Although I haven't been eating mostly fruit "for years," I have definitely been losing weight eating A LOT of bananas and mangoes. Here is my (limited) understanding of why the low carb diet and the 80-10-10 diet work.

Bananas, mangoes, and other fruit are simple carbohydrates in the form found in nature. Cells easily absorb their sugar for energy. It is clean energy that burns with little residue. (Refined sugar is also a simple carb, but unlike fruit, it doesn't have the nutrients, fiber, etc, that it should naturally have and that control its release/absorption.)

Wheat, rice, and other grains are complex carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates first need to be converted into sugar before cells can use them for energy. That conversion takes additional work for the digestive system. Most complex carbs need to be cooked to be palatable. Cooking makes complex carbohydrates even harder for the body to deal with by creating toxins (in addition to loss of nutrients).

The low carb diets severely reduce the intake of ALL carbohydrates - both simple and complex. However, the reason that low carb diets are effective for weight loss is because of the absence of COMPLEX CARBS. It is a mistake for low carb diets to also restrict simple carbs from fruit. Without having any simple carbs, low carb diets have to get calories somewhere and, (wrongly), it's from protein and fats. Although proteins and fats are necessary for good health in low proportions, in large proportions and from bad sources (like meat and fish) it is an unhealthy diet, and hard to sustain long term. One reason is the lack of antioxidents, phytonutrients, etc. that are found in fruit and vege. Another is the mercury in fish, hormones in meat, etc., etc., etc. And that's not even considering reasons of conscience for not eating animals or animal products.

If losing weight is the ONLY goal, low carb diets work for a while. However, what they should be is LOW COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATE/LOW FAT/LOW PROTEIN DIETS that get calories from lots and lots of fruit (and veges for minerals).

I'm not a dietician, nutritionist or medical professional of any kind, so others may have a better grasp of this. I, too, am very interested in why complex carbs cause weight gain. I have known others who eat high fat/low carb diet and lose weight - and I mean A LOT OF FAT and still lose weight. I have eaten low fat/low complex carb/high simple (fruit) carb and lost weight. In addition to other food, I ate four - or was it five - mangoes yesterday. I also had several bananas. And yes, I am still losing weight! I guess I've written a lot and not explained much. I look forward to reading replies by others.


My favorite raw vegan

I once worked with a woman doing adkins. She was constantly talking about it, and I could tell she craved sweet fruit, and carbs of any sort. I remember eating a mango salsa once while she just looked on like she was about to swoop down on it. She did eat limited amounts of lower sugar fruits, like apples and blueberries. Oddly enough she got a lot of support from a vegetarian woman in the office.

I think some people loose weight temporarily from doing high protein/low carb diets because the meals tend to be so filling. So they eat less during the day because they are so full for so long. I think overtime however, peoples digestive systems change and adjust, and they start to eat more, so it takes more to have the same filling effect. Another difficult part is that people also start to include carbs from various sources. Sometimes its not the best sort either, like refined flour, processed sugar etc...

When I worked at a deli, I was so surprised that one of the thinnest women routinely ordered a small white bread sandwich, which had salami, avocado, and extra mayo. Maybe that is all she ate in the day, or maybe she never finished it, or shared it with someone else. I never actually saw her eat it, so maybe she got it for someone else. Sometimes people can be quite thin eating stuff that everyone knows is unhealthy. I don't know how that happens. A couple I knew years ago actually advocated eating junk food to stay thin, they claimed that health food made you fat! Their statement made me feel uncomfortable, I never believe it. But despite being thin, they didn't look healthy. The type of thin they had wasn't attractive, so I don't think they where seeing the whole picture.

After my previous posting I came across this raw fruit article:
www.fredericpatenaude.com/fruitreport.pdf


My favorite raw vegan

Vinny,

Have you ever seen a fat fruitarian?

eaglefly Wrote:
-----------------------------------------------------
> Anyone here existed on mostly fruit for years want
> to chime in and totally disprove that thinking?
> Thanks.
>
> Vinny

Yes, me. I've lived mostly on fruit for over a couple of decades, and I weigh under 90 pounds. I also eat a moderate amount of nuts, seeds, and greens including seaweed; but by far, I eat way more fruit than anything else.

In my experience, an abundance of fruit doesn't make a person overweight. And an abundance of fruit plus other raw food groups (in moderation) doesn't make a person overweight. But if a person eats meat, dairy, starchy carbs - in abundance - plus fruit, and also doesn't exercise, then a person will be overweight.

It seems to me that a low-carb, high meat diet takes off pounds because it makes a person sick. I think Dr. McDougal calls it the "make-yourself-sick-diet", or something to that effect (from Dr. Campbell in The China Study).

Dr. Campbell found that the average weight of people who come from high-carb cultures (including starchy carbs) is less than the average weight of people who come from high-meat cultures.

--------

Trive, I agree with much of what you're saying, but I think it's not quite accurate to say that fruits are simple carbs and starches are complex carbs. Fruits are a good source of both simple and complex carbs. Grains, vegetables, nuts and seeds also contain both simple and complex carbs.

In a fruit, the simple carb is the fructose and the complex carb is the fiber. Because of the abundance of fructose (a simple carb) found in fruit, fruit is often cited as a healthy source of simple carbs. But that doesn't mean that fruit doesn't also contain complex carbs. Complex carbs in plant foods help to slow the absorption of the simple carbs during the process of digestion. That's why whole foods, like fruits, have a lower, more healthy, glycemic index than processed foods such as white sugar, fructose, and white flour.

White flour and other processed starchy foods, devoid of their natural fiber, are simple carbs.

Fructose and white sugar are also simple carbs.

The following link may not provide the greatest suggestions for raw food vegans, but it has a fairly good explanation of the difference between simple and complex carbs: [www.howtothinkthin.com]

Starchy foods are often cited as sources of complex carbs, but they also contain simple carbs. Starch is a form of complex carb. Complex carbs are usually a chain of thousands of molecules of glucose. Glucose is a simple carb. Complex carbs act as storage units for the simple carbs in the plant.

The two different types of starches are amylose and amylopectin. According to the following link, "The amount of amylose in proportion to amylopectin is what basically determines the physical-chemical nature of amylase foods and their nutritional impact on the human organism".
[www.montignac.com]

Notice that bananas, mangos and apples contain the amylose form of starch (a complex carb), along with wheat rice, corn, oats, barley, rye, potatoes, etc.

Here's more detail if anyone's interested:
[www.sparknotes.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2010 08:01AM by suncloud.

I don't think fruit will "make you" fat. I think inactivity or not eating enough greens could "make" someone fat.

I have seen low fruit, high fat raw eaters who look emaciated. I see them as the years get thinner and thinner. Even though they're eating tons of calories from fat.

Thanks for all the responses.

I also have other books that say to eat fruit only by itself,and to combine it with any other food will make a big fermenting mess in your belly.And that SOME fruits will cause a big spike in blood sugar,thus activating the whole insulin/fat storage issue.
It just seemed to me that fruit has so much water in it,and passes thru so quickly,it will keep your system clean .And fat would be the last thing it would put on you.

No,havent seen a fat raw foodist or frutarian yet.

Vin

I have been experimenting with all fruit dinners versus steamed veggie dinners. Seems the all fruit dinners make me lose weight easier rather than the veggies, even though calorically the fruit is higher.

I think in that case the comparison is a bit unfair, though, because the steamed veggie probably take less energy to digest compared to the fresh fruit. Fresh greens may be a different story...

I have read somewhere on this forum however that greens are likely to support weight gain because of a mineral balance? Anyone have more info?

Its been a relief to me to allow myself to eat lots of fruit- I love fruit but I have restricted eating it for years now, brainwashed with all the low carb/high protein hogwash. (I know low carb does work to lose weight, at least in the short term, but I cant see how it is a healthy long term lifestyle). Allowing myself to eat fruit feels so good and natural- reminds me of being a kid when I loved eating fruit and had no thought in my mind of needing to restrict what I ate. My mum used to buy me fruit as a sign of love because I just loved it. I am rediscovering that love.
I used to get hypoglycaemic but since going raw that is actually less of a problem now...as long as I eat something more than fruit for breakfast. As in, a bit of avocado on sprouted bread is enough to keep me going. I cant seem to do fruit only for breakfast yet...but I can see that I might in the long term.
And, I have lost weight now...a kg. Certainly not gaining.

I was a low carber for years (first lost a lot of weight, then gained it back adn then some, even though I kept with the low carb life style throughout). Then I turned raw eating loads and loads of fruit. Basically I allowed myself anything I wanted as long as it was raw. I lost huge amounts of weight almost instantly. My theory is that was because of my body having been highly acidic from all the meat. And boy did that feel great!!

I can relate, Peela, it was quite an effort for me in the beginning to rethink what I thought was right about fruit.

THe all fruit breakfast by the way is awesome. I eat a honeydew melon each morning and love it. Fixed all my constipation issues for sure