IN DEFENSE OF FRUIT

Im making this thread in respose to this thread regarding Gabriel Cousins diet recomendations:
[www.rawfoodsupport.com]

Id also like to talk about Brian Clements and his useless book, "Lifeforce"

Just to start, Id like to make my bias clear. I know fruits are good! (lol cant belive someone would say fruits are bad lol) I eat fruits and vegetables in large quatities and everything else in small quantities (except meat). I was going to save this article for my future blog, but I just think it's so important, this topic keeps erking me. So time to write!

Here is the underlying problem:
Guru's need to study nutrition and hygiene(natural)

Topic #1 Fat or starve programs

This agrguement is based on the fact that people need to eat a certain amount of fuel to sustain their bodilly functions over the long term. Sure, someone can fast for quite a while, maybe even 30 days, and I do even believe, that there have been many fasters and hygienists who have shown us that the body can become quite efficient and not require alot of fuel. Nevertheless, the average body requires a certain amount of fuel to run. And you will need to provide that fuel, or else you will become binge prone and revert to high calorie proccessed food or starve.

In other words, you need to get your fuel from somewhere.. And many of the longest lived cultures ate a crbohydrate based diet. In John Robbins book "healthy at 100", he studys 4 traditional cultures that are known for their cenetarians, they all have carbohydrate based diets(1), approx, 71% of their diets are based on Carbs. Actually if I average the the diets of the three cultures discussed on pg 57 of the book, their ratio of carb/pro/fat = 71/12/17.

How missleading and confusing, then, are the dietary recomendations of Gabriel Cousens if he dosen't use the percentage of calories method? I like to bring up these carb based diets because much of Gabriel Cousens program is about antiaging and prolonging life. And all of his dietary recomendations are high in fat.

Another big fat mistake has been made by our friend Brian Clement. One day last year I purchased 3 books from amazon. I wanted to get a good spectrum of information. I bought, Lifeforce by Brian Clemnent, Green for Life by Vicoria Boutenko, and 80/10/10 by Doug Graham. I lasted as long reading Brians book as most people last eating the Hippocrates diet. I forced myself to read some of this book every day for about 2 weeks and then finally gave up about 75% through. He dosent give much practical information, continuously builds theories from tiny tidbits of information from scientific studies, and makes many contridictory statements. In fact, in some ways he is quite unscientific. Here is an example,
In this video hes says he is in favour of a 90% complex carbohydrate diet, this is not possible with the diet he promotes.

[www.youtube.com]

Yet in his book virtually all of the menu is high in fat. Strangely also, he says blending destroys nutrients, however he promotes juicing??? Like that wont oxidise the nutrients?

Here is a macronutrient breakdown of a recipe in his book form pg 149:
carb/pro/fat = 38/13/49 Basically it is half fat!

On page 27 of the book, he lists the dietary beliefs of Hippocrates. Number 6 is "fat reduces the bodies ability to carry oxygen", which I totally agree with. But why are all of his recipes high in fat then? This is just another one of his big fat mistakes.

I have another inconsistancy for you, In chapter 1 page ten, he lists 10 common food myths. Myth #6 is that "fruit is a health promoting food". Certainly I disagree with this! Apparntly so does he because he later goes on (cant find the page)to say that the program consists of vegetables, fruits , nuts and seeds. Whatever!

Why do Cousens and Clement end up with diets that are fat and vegetables? Because they are afraid of fruit, afraid of cooked food and afraid of animal food. What else is left to eat? Im not promoting animal food or cooked food, Im promoting fruit. I remember seeing a youtube video of Clement saying one time that he eats cooked starches "recreationally". He does eat cooked food.
In this videoat 5:02 he says he eats steamed squash
[www.youtube.com]

I dont dislike Clement and Cousens, I just think they make the mistake of basing whole programs on theorys that came from tidbits of information they gathered from narrowminded studdies. Refer here to Dr. Morse's Opposing oppinion for more info about the importance of simple sugars in disease recovery :[www.robertmorsend.com]

Make sure to read that, Dr. Morse often treats patients who fail at Hippocrates. They are straved of carbs, thats why it dosen't work.

If you refer to the original thread, you will see that people invariably eat either fat or carbs, because its hard to eat more than 20% protein in the diet. People need to fuel themselves and people who shun carbs are usually binge prone and will revert to fruit, or starches, or junk food. On Andrew Perlot's website, Robby Barbaro explains the issues he had on the Tree of Life starvation program.
[www.raw-food-health.net]

Here's the secret to the healling success of Hippocrates and Tree of Life. They're sucess is built on what is left out of the diet. Not what the diet consists of. Many diets will heal degenerative disease. A raw plant based whole foods diet, weather its fruit based or vegetable based, or even a low fat cooked vegan diet is so much cleaner than a standard diet that it can help many diseases go away.

For example, in 1995 my brother was diagnosed with cancer. Before christmas a naturopath put him on a low fat cooked vegan diet, and his cancer started going into remmission. Christmas came arround and he fell back onto the SAD diet. By march he was dead.

Many credible people recomend a low fat plant based diet
-Robert Morse
-True North
-Gerson, etc
-Cambell (china study)

One Hole I like to poke into The high fat vegan diets is this. We are not heribovores, we are frugivores. We have a hard time garnering enough energy from a vegetable diet (so invariably these people resort to fat for fuel). Vegan fat sources are only available in the fall when the trees make nuts and avacodos grow. We are not FATivores The only natural year round sources of fuel are fruit sugar, starches and animal fat. And since the China study has already shown that excess animal food is not healthy, then we must be carb eaters. Are our tounges not made to taste fruit and greens? We taste sweet the most prominatley. The hippocrates recipes all had condiments like bragg liquid aminos, in order to spice up the tasteless food. Doesn't that tell you something?

This brings me to number 2
WHY FRUIT IS GOOD!

1) Fructose is awesome!
Fructose is the most electrically active sugar molecule. We are the smartest creatures because we are frugivores. Our brain is huge and runs on sugars all day. My brain certainly feels sharper and my memory is better on fruit.
Dr. Morse has found that fruit diets will regenerate nerve tissue where vegetables will not (2). He is the only Dr. I know of who has restored nerve function to parapeligics. He does this with fruit!

100 calories of fruit sugar will require less insulin than 100 calories of glucose. Why because the sugar in fruit is half fructose. Fructose, DOES NOT require insulin to enter the cell. It does so by diffusion(3). Saving systemic energy for the body. This is one of the reasons why fruit is the superior carbohydrate! Fruit does not over load the blood with sugar. especially when the diet is low in fat. Dietary fat actually creates insulin resistance, Don bennet explains it well in this video:
[www.youtube.com]

Fruit is actually perfect for diabetics and cancer patients. Infact Dr. Morse has been extremely successful using fruits for cancer patients. He has a cancer success rate of 80% using fruit diets(4), like grape juice fasts. If sugar caused cancer then these people would not recover. this is another reason I don't believe in this fast oxidizer, slow oxidizer nonsense. Dr. Morse has a great success rate with all people on the same diet. We are all anatomically and biologically very simillar, we just have different problems that require different solutions.

Heres the real secret: the problem is PROLONGED ELEVATED BLOOD SUGAR, caused by overeating of oils, refined starches, refined sugars and too much fat. Like I said, blood congested with fat, will show insulin resistance, and will require alot of insulin to process the glucose. Low fat fruit and veg diet does not cause PROLONGED ELEVATED BLOOD SUGAR, and it also provides the systemic energy needed to recover from disease. Bottom line is this, dont be affraid of whole foods. Processed foods (sugar, oil and flour) are the main culprits in blood sugar issues, NOT fruit. And the best of the best Healers use fruits in their programs!

Sources
1) Healthy at 100 by John Robins, pg 57
2) pg 157,The Detox Miracle Sourcebook (The best book ever) by Dr. Robert Morse ND
3) pg 64, same as above
4) pg 156, same as above

Sorry for the spelling and grammar mistakes

Great post WorkoutMan. I too have chosen fruit as my calorie source rather than fat or cooked starches. Raw starch has absolutely no taste. Its only by cooking that the starch gets converted into sugar, and then it has taste. Or like you mention, people add their own taste.

Other authors promoting a low fat plant based diet - Dr Joel Fuhrman, Dr John McDougall.

There are some people whose bodies won't digest or handle fruit that well. Perhaps because of their previous diet, or perhaps for other health factors. After being on this forum from 10 years, I've heard people share about their body after years of being raw finally being able to handle fruit. So for some people, they may need to start with the low sugar fruits, and get their calories from either cooked starch or raw fats until their bodies can heal enough to eat fruits. And this may take years.

Prana Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Raw starch has absolutely no taste. >
>

What?

bah!

Corn, carrots, potatoes, squash, peas. Yummy.

The name of the taste of sugar is sweet. The name of the taste of salt is salty. Rocketship, what is the name of the taste of starch?

Those foods you mentioned have starch in them. But they have other substances that give it taste, like sugar or natural salts. I enjoy raw corn, but only when its sweet. I like raw peas also, but only when they are sweet. Its great that you think raw potatoes are yummy, but I find them tasteless.

Prana Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Its only by cooking that the starch gets converted
> into sugar, and then it has taste. Or like you
> mention, people add their own taste.
>

By this statement I presumed you meant starchy foods did not have flavor until cooked. I didn't realize there were 'people' eating molecularly isolated 'raw starch' and adding flavor to it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2011 05:17AM by RocketShip.

Hope I didn't attack Cousens and Clement, too much in this. My real goal was to defend fruit as a health food.

Diet is obviously a huge part of exercise, repairing etc, but even on a SAD diet i was fit as a fiddle until other issues crept in mainly stress related.

I could do 100's of pushups which i must remind everyone from a fitness point of view is pointless all it does it train localized endurance of those specific muscles. Strength and conditioning should really never go over 12-15 repetitions tops. Endurance should be trained sport specifically i.e boxer then rounds on the heavy/punch bag etc.

Although it sounds impressive it is quite a pointless feat.

[www.amlaberry.co.uk]

Im not sure what you mean about your last question if someone is following a low carb diet then id doubt they'd be including much grains considering the carbohydrate content whether complex or not. Legume sprouts are so/so for carb content.

But what i was meaning about exercise was that although diet is important its not everything, it definitely is when you competing at top level or for weight lifting as that requires alot of calories to repair. But for localized endurance using conditioning exercises which again like i say not only pointless can be achieved quite easily with constant progression. The body is quick to adapt, which is why progressive overload is necessary although increasing repetitions is not the answer.

My friend is pretty unhealthy and his diet is terrible and he can do a similar amount of push-ups, no matter how much of my sport science books i show him this is pointless and that he should be increasing the load instead of the volume, he still thinks hes fitter than pretty much everyone he knows. Each to there own i guess if i cant convince him with literature from some of the top strength and conditioning coaches and sport science books in the world i doubt i ever will lol.

Either way i believe a moderate amount of carbohydrates are necessary even if they aren't considered essential. With fruits and vegetables being the best sources because they contain other beneficial nutrients and phyto-chemicals.

[www.amlaberry.co.uk]



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2011 02:19PM by powerlifer.

THeStOrm- I still dont quite understand how he reccomends 30-50% protein. He must not mean by percentage of calories??? Does he mean 30% of the foods are protein foods?

Does he give any meal plans, or suggest what to eat exactly?

THeSt0rm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> so why aren't grain or legume sprouts just eaten
> more than fruit on these low sugar diets?
>
> If sprouted properly it might be the key to the
> low sugar diets. They're not only afraid of fruit
> but also grains and legumes. WHen they are
> sprouted properly though they are devoid of
> antinutritional factors. One pointed ot in a
> study, legumes kept their hemagluttanins. But
> later on in another study it showed that they
> completely disappeared after 3-4 days of
> sprouting.

Once sprouted, these grain seeds become more like vegetables as the carbohydrate is used up by the growning plant. Sprouts are kinda like minature vegetables, and maybe they cant provide enough fuel??

Fruit is not the problem, it is the best diet for humans, the problem is that most of us have clogged disgestive systems making it difficult to live on fruits, when the system is clean with proper digestive bacteria fruit is the answer.

None of the raw foods are bad i.e fruits, vegetables, sprouts, nuts, seeds, seaweeds etc.

I just cant see why anyone would solely like to restrict most of there intake to one of them. Ive always felt good on a moderate intake of all, some days ill have more of one than others of course.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]

Some people with super fast metabolisms, like myself, seem to need more fat and burn fat for fuel more efficiently. Others, with slower metabolism seem to be weighed down by fat. I think it depends on the person. But I agree with powerlifer, I just don't see the point of limiting myself further when I do good on the diet I'm on, no reason to cut out the fatty (good fats) things I eat when they give me energy and make me feel great!

Diet is individual in my opinion, some will thrive on high carb diets others will fail, some thrive on high fat diet. I know quite a few professional athletes that i talk with regularly that are on high fat diets and well are obviously excelling as they are pro athletes.

Personally ive never done well on any low macronutrient diet, much like high macronutrient, i had some problems with high carbohydrate aswell as some kidney stress from high protein. Moderate intake of all macronutrients works great for me and i thrive on it. Takes abit of tinkering about to find each individuals optimal diet.

Either way in most cases they should be based around healthy raw whole foods such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds etc.

[www.amlaberry.co.uk]

the fact that someone is a professional athlete
and eating a high fat diet
does not logically lead to the conclusion that
the person is "thriving"
unless your definition of thriving is simply being a professional athlete,
which would be a distorted and narrow definition.


>He says at 60 yrs he was able to do like 602 consecutive pushups on this diet.

i would like to see the video

or the video of you, powerlifer, doing 100's of pushups (what speed? what depth?)

Like i said above what is the point in 100's of pushups? All it works is localized endurance of a specific set of muscle group. Strength and conditioning exercises are purely for that to increase strength and conditioning not to achieve localized endurance of the pectoral and triceps. As i said endurance is trained sport specific if your a marathon runner then you do endurance runs etc there is no correlation between 600 pushups and increasing your ability as a marathon runner. I am a qualified fitness instructor with a good organization for a reason and it was extremely hard tests so i know a thing or two when it comes to fitness fresh.

If you want to see me deadlifting 190kg+ at 75kg weight which is damn impressive if i may say im sure i can arrange a video.

You do know that endurance athletes primary fuel source is fatty acids/fats right so why could they not be thriving? The athlete in question also doesnt metabolize carbohydrates very well so only has a moderate intake.

Myself ive always thrived and can metabolize carbs well but i choose to get most of them from fruits and vegetables as i don't tolerate grains all that well nor do i like them all that much.

Well hes obviously thriving on the diet hes on if hes a professional athlete or he would be dropped duh. EDIT: He is also as natural as they come no stimulants, steroids or any other perfomance enhancing crap before you use that as defense.

EDIT: Just to note i do all my exercises quite explosive so semi fast and with full ROM(range of motion). As a boxer/thai boxer i aim to train for power and strength. Again sport specific.



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2011 05:56PM by powerlifer.

>You do know that endurance athletes primary fuel source is fatty acids/fats right so why could they not be thriving? The athlete in question also doesnt metabolize carbohydrates very well so only has a moderate intake.

you didn't respond to my statement, so i will just assume we have different definitions of thriving and different assumptions and leave it there.


>Myself ive always thrived and can metabolize carbs well but i choose to get most of them from fruits and vegetables as i don't tolerate grains all that well nor do i like them all that much.

excellent - grains have little taste to me, so i don't know why anyone would like them, without adding things to them.


regarding the pushups you said

"I could do 100's of pushups"

so again, i look forward to your video and if anyone has a video of GC too

Why so agro bro? Take it down a notch eh?

What is your definition of thriving, fresh? Just curious...

I come from a history of SAD, tons of health problems, barely able to get out of bed a few years ago (I'm only in my twenties too!), nearly died at one point I was so sick... so for me to be able to be athletic at all would be considered thriving for sure. But I suppose one can always thrive more!

You must have missed my whole post then, hes a thriving professional athlete one of the top in his sport so whats the not response all about. If his diet wasn't working for him he would be getting sub-optimal results and wouldn't be where he is today would he? Hes not the only one, i know many low carbohydrate professional athletes also that are well obviously doing well enough to be getting paid the crazy amount they do and to be considered some of the best at there various sports.

I actually have a wealth of old videos on a cdrom of me doing various things from inter-club fights for boxing and muay thai with my old clubs to weight lifting and various other bits and bobs but i don't even think i want to share them here unlike i do on forums ive been in the past the majority here are friendly but there is a select few who aren't for some reason. Where are your videos fresh? Why does anyone need videos or pictures of themselves anyway, were using the medium of text here in most cases so lets stick with that for now.

>Why so agro bro? Take it down a notch eh?

agro is only in your mind,
not in my words
so maybe read it again without your mind
translating them improperly because you don't "like" me

>What is your definition of thriving, fresh? Just curious... smiling smiley

to prosper to your highest potential (relevant to this discussion)
as influenced by diet and other relevant health factors.
this would include not just being capable of being a pro athlete,
but also being "clean" internally, for example


>You must have missed my whole post then, hes a thriving professional athlete one of the top in his sport so whats the not response all about. If his diet wasn't working for him he would be getting sub-optimal results and wouldn't be where he is today would he? Hes not the only one, i know many low carbohydrate professional athletes also that are well obviously doing well enough to be getting paid the crazy amount they do and to be considered some of the best at there various sports.


my point was that a professional athlete is not necessarily thriving "internally" or in various other ways.

>I actually have a wealth of old videos on a cdrom of me doing various things from inter-club fights for boxing and muay thai with my old clubs to weight lifting and various other bits and bobs but i don't even think i want to share them here unlike i do on forums ive been in the past the majority here are friendly but there is a select few who aren't for some reason. Where are your videos fresh? Why does anyone need videos or pictures of themselves anyway, were using the medium of text here in most cases so lets stick with that for now.

you keep talking about other things when i ask a simple question.
and this is not being agro. (hi, coco!)
i would love to see a video of you doing hundreds of pushups.
your comment was in response to GC supposedly doing 602 pushups.
i find it hard to believe. so i asked for more info if anyone had any.

one would naturally assume that you were talking about consecutively, as that was the context.
but maybe that was not your intent.
i was just asking . i'm the curious type.

Again the last time i tried which was a pointless venture with a friend i could do around 100 pushups in a row with full range of motion. My friend worst diet ever kebabs, burgers etc can do around 500+ in a row with semi full ROM and yes guess what it achieves nothing. The guy is great at pushups well done to him but it correlates nothing to fitness other than he is good at pushups and has taken the time for some strange reason to achieve as many as possible.

Did you miss my 2-3 posts above from a sport science viewpoint that anything over 12-15 repetitions with weights or bodyweight exercises is pointless? Well if not it is, these tools are there to increase strength, power and other components such as speed-strength. I could sit and do a million bicep curls for you if you want and does that have any correlation whatsoever to anything no. It just means i can do a thousand pointless bicep curls which achieves localized endurance of the bicep.

Hate to have to repeat myself here again but endurance is one fitness component that is and has always to be trained sport specific again here i repeat myself but if your a boxer then spar, do rounds on the punch/heavy bag this is what will correlate in the gym/ring/sport. If your a sprinter then sprinting, endurance runner/cyclist then cycle/run. 600 pushups isnt going to help in anyway to the above infact in many ways it hinders performance by overly training slow twitch fibers when many of the sports should focus on activating fast twitch fibers.

EDIT: You missed my point, which was that it was pointless for him to be doing so many pushups when he should be adding resistance not more repetitions. One way of doing this with bodyweight exercises such as push-ups is to change the leverage i.e one armed pushups, one legged squats.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2011 07:24PM by powerlifer.

fresh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >Why so agro bro? Take it down a notch eh?
>
> agro is only in your mind,
> not in my words
> so maybe read it again without your mind
> translating them improperly because you don't
> "like" me
>


???

Oh right, you're that guy.

I'll tell you something, I don't look at who posted what on here, I just read the words. Frankly, I can't remember who said what most of the time because I don't much care. So I did read what you wrote and it came across as being agro but now that you've put it into context for me I suppose that's just your style.
BTW where are your videos?

Comon guys lets not argue too much. I my purpose was just to show sweet fruit as a health food. Someone can overdo anything, including fruit. So if you eat a few fruits, some nuts here and there, an avocado, some veg etc.. and you feel good eating a moderate mixed diet then great. People shouldn't be afraid of whole foods. There have been days where I have eaten a large amount of fat from whole foods, oh well who cares. I just don't like when people (such as Brian Clement) say fruit is not healthy, cause its obviously wrong.

WorkoutMan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Comon guys lets not argue too much. I my purpose
> was just to show sweet fruit as a health food.
> Someone can overdo anything, including fruit. So
> if you eat a few fruits, some nuts here and there,
> an avocado, some veg etc.. and you feel good
> eating a moderate mixed diet then great. People
> shouldn't be afraid of whole foods. There have
> been days where I have eaten a large amount of fat
> from whole foods, oh well who cares. I just don't
> like when people (such as Brian Clement) say fruit
> is not healthy, cause its obviously wrong.

I agree fully about fruit and your purpose of this thread mate, sorry its been derailed although hopefully it has some good information.

coconuts,

Surely you recognize this strategy from other contentious posts which indicated no desire to learn or to be solicitous but merely to challenge, hmmmm?

WorkoutMan,

I am very impressed by the rigor with which you make your argument--footnotes! I do well on high fruit, but I do believe that there may be some credence to the idea that there may be subcategories of humans that manifest as dietary needs; thus, there are people who cannot handle fruit and who thrive on calories from fat. But I think they are probably a minority of individuals. Thanks for reminding us of Dr. Morse's work--I'd forgotten, but am going to take another look at it when I have the chance. Great effort at this thread!

I really should start paying attention to who is saying what, that would clue me in sometimes.

You know, we do eat quite a bit of fruit but all 3 of us are skinny minis w high metabolisms and do well with some fat. Olives, nuts and seeds, avos, very small amounts of coconut oil. We just eat what we like and that is mostly veggies for me with some fruit and fat. In summer there is more fruit but it never outweighs the greens and veg. I'm not measuring anything on purpose either, that's just what I like and am attracted too.

derailed, contentious, solicitous, agro, challenge.....

how we label and judge.....

might be easier to just comment on what you want to comment on , and ignore the rest.




>Again the last time i tried which was a pointless venture with a friend i could do around 100 pushups in a row with full range of motion.

100 is impressive

I looked up the world record – it's like 10000 consecutive. .

all the other stuff – I don't need to be schooled on exercise, but thanks anyway.
the best exercise info i've found is

[www.i-a-r-t.com]

>BTW where are your videos?

Why would I need to put videos up?
I didn't say anything about me doing pushups
and I have nothing to prove to anybody.

regarding the original post, certainly the confusion about GC is justified, he does not have a coherent system.

Well the thread was derailed come on, it wasn't about exercise.

But back to the point 100 isn't very impressive, anyone with abit of will could work up to that pointless feat. I don't know why they'd want to because like i say its pointless over 12-15 reps anyway. Again there is nothing impressive about 10k pushups sure its cool but its pointless from a fitness/athletic aspect. I wasnt suggesting you needed to be schooled anyway but if you are familiar with this sort of knowledge you'd surely agree that these hundreds of repetitions is pointless?

Ill agree the whole food system from GC ive seen in the other threads seems very confusing and abit strange and maybe dangerous.

EDIT: Like you say you have nothing to prove, neither do i, im here for learning and helping those i can with raw, diet, health or fitness. When i can i will chime in to help, but it seems a select few when you do want videos and pictures not sure why really. On a SAD diet i was fit and was told i looked great, fit and healthy and i had extremely poor health so its not really a great judge if i may say. I had a hard time convincing anyone how ill i was because of how athletic i looked so like ive said before looks can be deceiving.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2011 07:31PM by powerlifer.