There are alot of conflicting opinions on fruits in the raw food community. I'm listening to Brian Clement of Hippocrates on a podcast say that he has taken fruit out of his program due to research he discovered. Then I read Frederic Patenaude say that we should eat a diet of fruits, nuts and vegetables, but mostly fruits. He is comparing us to monkeys, saying that our hands are designed to peel, etc.. I wonder about fruit's high sugar content. I know sometimes it can make me a little spacey in my mind. The other question is if your to eat fruits and vegetables, but not fruits after vegetables, how long after you eat vegetables can you eat fruits? wheew deep breath...


I'm wondering about your opinions on this and wny? I have to say that fruits are delicious and seem to be put here on earth for our enjoyment, however there are some valid reasons to avoid them as well..

Thanks!

Jeff

There are some people who are in such a low state of health that they are unable to eat fruit - they exhibit diabetes like symptoms when eating fruit. These people didn't get sick from eating fruit, it was all the high fat cooked foods that got them into their state of ill health.

Brian Clements doesn't recommend eating fruit. He also doesn't recommend eating 100% raw either. However, there are many people, mayself included, who are experiencing great health with the 100% raw diet.

On the 100% raw diet, there are only 2 choices where one can get a significant amount of calories - from sweet fruit or fatty foods. The people who eat a high fat over a long period of time often lose the ability to eat sweet fruit. The people who eat a high fruit diet can eat a fatty meal without problems. Why is this? A lot of fat in the bloodstream cause the body to not be able to process sugar out of the blood in a timely fashion.

One can also get significant colories from grains and beans sprouts. Try sprouting quinoa, lentils.

I've been eating a high fruit, 95% raw diet for 4 years and my health is excellent, I've got tons of energy and am very active, walking 5 to 10 miles most days.

Rob

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

I think it depends on your own body's constitution, so you'll have to discover for yourself what works best. There are some ppl on this board who eats tons and tons of fruit, and others whose diet consists of mostly greens and vegetables and not so much fruit.

Methinks Bryan hit the nail on the head. Everything depends on what one has been eating prior to transitioning to a more living food diet and in what general condition the health of the body.

I too am a bit confused on the fruit controversy. The majority of the books I've read give fruit a less prominent position in the diet than vegetables and sprouted (or cooked) grains (and some of these books are quite old). In books authored by N.D.'s, fruit is considered a cleansing food and vegetables a building food, which makes good sense to me, and so there are times for more fruit and times for more veggies.

Lately I've been wanting more fruit (I recently completed 9 days of the Master Cleanse). It's hot and humid here and the natural sweetness and juiciness of fruits just naturally appeal. However, I don't think that this would be the case in the dead of winter, when fresh fruits are less plentiful and the body needs more building and sustaining foods (It's no mere superstition that brings All Hallows Eve in October...the body is much more susceptible to illness in the winter months).

In reading many books on nutrition one can become enormously confused as there are many points of view. The value though of becoming familiar with the different perspectives is that it feeds the resourceful mind so that intuition can kick in. If one is rigidly adhering to any set of principles, then there is no need for intuition to serve you, and I believe that intuitional eating is probably best as only YOUR body knows what is best for YOU.

~K

Brian Clement and Frederic Patenaude are both right. Fruit is bad and fruit is good.
Fruit in its natural state is good because its natural sugar content is not that high. Fruit in its commercial state is bad, the sugar content may be 1000 times what is was supposed to be naturally, so too much of it is bad for you. It is hard to find fruit in their natural state but we can be smart and eat fruit with less sugar and add more green smoothies to our diet. Patennaude provides a list vegetable fruit that are good for you, they have less sugar.

[www.rawfoods.com]

I been eating fruit for years and I never got that so called spacey feeling I keep reading about on many different post and even some books I have read over the years.

Khale

After doing a nine day fast I would probally be hungry for fruit also I would want to catch up on some of my missed meals enjoy .

Cherimoya

Love Peace and Happiness,

[www.vegsource.com]

I eat a high fruit diet, but for the last couple of years or so I get that spacey feeling when I've eaten JUST fruit for more than a day or two. If I eat nuts/seeds or greens the feeling goes away.

The other day, I read an article by a guy who ate only fruit for a long time. He said his teeth started falling out, so now he believes fruit is very bad for people, and he doesn't eat fruit at all. I'm just thinking that maybe he could have kept his teeth and ate fruit too if he ate something besides JUST fruit.

But I agree that each person is somewhat different, and I think climate makes a difference too. Most people on this forum seem to have no problem with greens for instance, but for me, I'm sensitive to greens and have to eat them sparingly.

Without a lot of fruit, I don't have as much energy, and I find the fruit is easiest for my sensitive system to handle.

I live in subtropical Hawaii, and growing vegetables here is a lot harder than growing fruits because of the bugs and slugs and such that are in and on the ground. To grow greens here, each plant has to be surrounded by copper strips to keep off the slugs, and then there's the cutworms, etc. that have to be dealt with (organically of course) constantly. It's not at all like growing vegetables on the mainland USA. Once I grew brussels sprouts here and watched as they got big and fat on the stalk. When I harvested them, they couldn't be eaten because they were almost completely hollowed out by the hordes of earthworms that had decided to move into them!

I think nature intended that the more yang (warm) the climate, the more yin the food. Fruit is yin.

But generally speaking, I think humans, who don't have a lot of hair on their bodies to keep them warm, most likely did most of their evolving in warm climates, and that means they should be able to eat fruit.

Best wishes, -Ally



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2006 02:05AM by Ally.