Everyone has their own definition it seems, would your's include:

sweet fruits

berries

vegetable fruits

nuts, seeds, beans and grains

My definition would include all of the above. The criteria for being included in the fruitarian diet is the ability to self-replicate (it is a seed or it contains seeds). I think fruitarianism would more acurately be called "seedism".

Of course some seeds are more palatable than others, I wouldn't eat just anything that was a seed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2007 12:56PM by tropical.

I would disagree since generally you would consume a lot more Fruit than seeds, even though the fruit bears seed, some fruits have been made seedless so this would further cause confusion.
For anyone who is confused about Fruitarianism a good link is [www.fruitarian.com]

Phil.

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"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it" (Chinese Proverb)

Hi there,

Everybodies definition is different. Some people include greens and nuts in their definition. I include sweet fruits and non sweet fruits (tomato, avocado, cucumber, ect..).

All the best,

Audrey
www.rawhealing.com

Hmmm...my thoughts:

-I've eaten nothing but fruits for many years now. I eventually eschewed (rather than chewed) nuts a year or two ago....as they upset my teeth & digestion. I am the healthiest and strongest guy I know (just placed 23rd out of 200 in the last 5K run).

-I fully support others goals and directions in this area...and don't think there's ONE 'ISM' that covers the way a person should eat. It's all about YOUR path...and the tools that can help you get there.

-My own definition is your standard sweet seed-bearing tree, bush & vine fruits. My diet these days is mostly small avocadoes, apples, fresh oranges, along with some berries, papaya and melon. SO: If the plant drops it willingly...I suppose I can eat it! Ha! ha!

-I suppose a great goal would be to grow your own food, and eat nothing that kills the plant....or to do the best one can in that direction! LOL.

-Just my experience.

-David Z. Mason

anything with a seed.

I would define fruit as the package created by a plant, containing it's seed, that is made to be consumed by an animal in order for the next generation of the plant to be spread.

In fact, some plants' seeds only germinate successfully when they are scarified by an animal's stomach acids on their journey through the digestive tract to be deposited on the ground in a pile of $#%! errr, fertilzer. How can you not be grateful for the wisdom of nature in creating this amazing process. This is why I am loving fruit more and more.

We're built for fruit. Our bodies and senses confirm this. Our limbs and hands can perform the tasks necessary to harvest many kinds of fruit. Our eyes perceive colors and can distinguish ripe from unripe fruit at a distance. Our sense of smell attracts us to sweet fragrances The first part of our sense of taste is the tip of our tongue containing our sweet sensing taste buds ready to savor fruit. Our hearing is acute enough to hear the wizzing sound made by the thorny husk of a falling Durian in time to step out of the path of it's deadly fall to earth Sorry, I was getting way too serious there for a minute.

Our relationship to fruit was a match made in Shangri-la. We get the simple sugars for fuel, enzymes to convert proteins into amino acids and enzymes to convert fats into fatty acids and glycerols to nourish our bodies' 18 trillion cells. In exchange, the plant gets to have it's seeds transported to another location where, sooner or later, one of them will find the right conditions to make a baby plant to replace the parent plant(s).

When you spit a seed out on the ground you are performing a primordial act of plant procreation.

Let go of your mind conditioning by modern society, cultivate your sensitivity to your energy body and you can begin to feel the energy of your food. That's one of the greatest appeals of raw food for me. I'm beginning to feel fruit as the most energetic and live food available. Dead food feels just that, dead. This is coming from someone who took the craft of cooking flesh to the max for over 20 years. It was an ego trip and it made me sick over time, physically and spiritually.

Love from Uti,
Namaste

P.S. I'm grateful to Doug Graham for his boundless energy and inspiration.
But please Dr D, don't eat all the good mangos before we get to Costa Rica next month

Thanks for all the inspiring responses everyone!



Jadedshade - you are totally right, it is more about fruit flesh around the seeds than seeds themselves, the biggest exception might be coconut.

Here's the definition of fruit from the current (standard) college core biology text (Biology, Campbell and Reece, 7th Ed. 2005, Pearson Benjamin Cummings publishers),

[www.amazon.com]

(BTW awesome book, and I do not use the word lightly, it is fabulous, so many great pictures, so much incredible detail!)

pp 398-399:

"A fruit typically consists of a mature ovary, although it can include other flower parts as well. As seeds develop from ovules after fertilization, the wall of the ovary thickens. A pea pod is an example of a fruit, with seeds (mature ovules, the peas) encased in the ripened ovary (the pod). Fruits protect dormant seeds and aid in their dispersal."

"The fruit beings to develop after pollination triggers hormonal changes that cause the ovary to grow. The wall of the ovary becomes the pericarp, the thickened wall of the fruit. As the ovary grows, the other flower parts wither away in many plants. If a flower is not pollinated, the fruit usually does not develop, and the entire flower withers and falls away."

"Mature fruits can be either fleshy or dry. Oranges, strawberries, and grapes are examples of fleshy fruits, in which one or more pericarp layers become soft during ripening. Dry fruits include beans, nuts, and grains. The dry, wind-dispersed fruits harvested while on the plant, are major staple foods for humans. The cereal grains of wheat, rice, maize, and other grasses are easily mistaken for seeds, but each is actually a fruit with a dry pericarp that adheres to the seed coat of the seed within."

mmm I love eating plant ovaries..lol

Nobody should feel guilty for eating plant ovaries. Fruit wants to be eaten. Plants use us to disperse their seeds. We should not be flushing them down the toilet, however.

Some fungi also want to be eaten. Fungi are really cool. Most of the species in the various phyla of the Fungi kingdom have incredibly elaborate sex lives. One might possibly feel too guilty to eat them after reading about their sex lives.

Here is a pic of pilobus. It lives on cow sh*t. When the time is right, it aims itself towards the light and shoots off millions of spores at a distance of up to 12 feet, just like a gun, to get the spores to the best patches of grass so that cows will eat them and disperse them more widely.

[www.virtualmuseum.ca]





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2007 04:02AM by arugula.

It's a common misconception among many would be fruitarians that seeds are fruit. By all definitions, common and botanical, the fruit is the container that holds the seeds; not the seeds themselves. For apples and peaches it is the outer sweet flesh, not the seeds. If someone served a "fruit" salad of apple seeds and peach pits a reasonable person would think them nuts.

Under the botanical definition the outer container is inedible: For nuts it is the husk and shell, not the inner seed. For grain it the hull and seed coat, not the inner seed. For legumes it is the pod, not the seed. The diet of 100s of millions of people consist of mostly grains: rice, corn, beans, wheat. Surely you're not going to call them fruitarians.

Calling seeds, fruit, reduces the term "fruit" to nonsense. No one can then know what you're talking about. Seeds are not fruit.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2007 09:15PM by brome.

Do you guys count "false fruits" as fruits as well?

Hummor:
The definition of a fruitarian: A person who claims everything they eat is a fruit.

;-)

Cheers,
Ian.

ha ha ha!

Some fruitarians will eat only what would naturally from a plant.

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2007 02:04AM by rawgosia.

There is the botanical definition of fruits and the culinary definition. For what I eat, I use the culinary definition. Also, I like fruits to have a water density that is the same or higher than mine. If there were a fruit that was only 10% water, I don't think I would want to eat that fruit in any kind of volume.

some fruitarians eat cooked fruit, for real.
I know so many and each one of them has cheat foods , like aloe, coconut sugarcane juice ( me)..I have read some books , like I live on fruit by essie honnibal and she eats nuts..

So you are a fruitarian according to X definition, but why is that a good thing? In other words, what is the logic behind being a fruitarian? If we understand the logic, I think the relevant definition of "fruit" will become apparent. For example, one possible logic to "minimize harm", in which case a "fruit" is any part of the plant that does not "hurt" it when it is removed. What this means precisely still has to be discussed though.

For reference, here are fruit groups used by one popular fruitarian website.
[www.fruitarian.com]

I suppose this is what many self-identified fruitarians mean by "fruit". The definition does include nuts and seeds, but not beans or grains.

Seeds............hmmmmmmmmmmmmm..........

I guess that would eliminate bananas!!! (I'm not just
talking about regular bananas but plantains as well)
Just like Kiwi fruit.


Why Vegan?
Because I have the most love and admiration for all animals of the earth!!!
a rawvegan hopeful, rawdev4life!!!