Hello,

I don't mean to start fruit bashing or anything like that, I do believe that the majority of people will do best on a mostly-fruit diet. However, I came across some information last night that I found VERY eye-opening and incredibly beneficial to me, and perhaps others will to, so I wanted to post it.

While I've moved to a mostly sweet fruit diet (partly due to the thirst-producing effects of zeolite, and partly due to the influence of the 80-10-10 diet), I've lately begun to notice that I've been needing more and more zeolite, and I couldn't figure out why.

Well I found the possible answer last night...... there are 2 disorders of fructose metabolism - 1 is the rare and more serious genetically inherited disorder called FRUCTOSE INTOLERANCE, and the other is the very common (1 in 3 people affected) and possibly modern-diet induced FRUCTOSE MALABSORBTION.

Fructose intolerance can be serious and may lead to liver failure and even death. One of the symptoms of this disorder is an AVERSION TO FRUIT from a young age. The body cannot properly metabolize fruit.

Here is an excerpt from the link:

The rare HFI (Hereditary Fructose Intolerance) cannot be cured. For this a strict Fructose-free Diet must be maintained in the long term.

The much more common Fructose Malabsorption however is much easier to manage. By using a journal and monitoring yourself, you will find a threshold level that is tolerable. That is - you will be able to eat some Fructose without suffering symptoms.

-------------------------------------

I've heard of most diseases but I've never heard of these, I think that with most people in our society eating a modern, cooked food diet, the above disorders are just seen as irrelevant by most health professionals..... ok so you can't eat fruit, big deal, so don't eat fruit.... However for obvious reasons these two disorders can indeed be VERY MAJOR things to consider when living or attempting a raw food lifestyle.

I found this information VERY helpful to me, it explains alot of the things I was experiencing.

Give me an example of what a good menu for a day would be please.

Here are the links:


[www.nlm.nih.gov]


[www.foodintol.com]


-------------------------------

What this means for me is that if I don't want to be taking zeolite all the time, I have to go back to a much lower consumption of sweet fruit, even if it means perhaps adding in some cooked barley or beans to add the calories I've been getting with the sweet fruit.

Maybe this is why I have gas, bloating and always feel tired and head achy? THe thing is I don,t care much for veggies LOL

sharlla, i'm like you. i love fruit and don't like veggies too much. how long have you been feeling bloated, tired, and headachey? i've just started eating mostly fruits and i do feel a little lethargic and irritable but that's probably from my time of the month. i hope. now i'm a little scared. what to do?

Laura T

For as long as I started raw, I figured at first my body was detoxing from caffeine etc but that should be way over now. Admittedly before deciding to make this lifestyle change I had very little fruit in my diet and did not have this problem.

do you think you are going to change your diet now? i'm getting confused on what to do. i've heard that it does take some time for your body to adjust to eating this healthy. do you think it could be the amount of fiber that is in fruit that makes you bloated? i get real bloated if i eat a lot of veggies.

??????????????????????????????

Laura

I think I will try to eat just veggies and see haw that goes, I don't want to quit raw. Reintroduce some fruits and see if I can have *some* and see how much and what kinds I can have before feeling like this. I don't think it's a fiber thing (for me) because I use to eat a huge bowl of bran flakes in the morning and never felt this way.

For me what works, and I noticed this even when I was a kid since I grew up in a fruit & vegetable stocked home, is to eat the more of the non-sweet fruits like cucumbers, peppers, and zucchini. I've gotten away from these lately and have not been feeling that good, except with the aid of zeolite.

Arugula posted a fructose-level guide to all the fruits, I think that could be very handy for a raw foodist who has a fructose sensitivity. I was surprised at which fruits were actually the highest & lowest in fructose. It's not what I would've thought

do you know where i can see that post?

[www.rawfoodsupport.com]

I'm not sure how I am suppose to read the chart

thanks sharlla, i think the top pf the list is the highest amount of fructose in that fruit, i think. i'm not real sure either but thanks!

Yes Sharlla I agree with you that it doesn't seem to be a fiber thing- I used to do the big bowls of high fiber cereal, too!

As for the chart, yes at the top are the fruits with the highest fructose, and the lowest fructose fruits are at the bottom.

I feel so much BETTER today, my new diet guideline is going to be to eat a mostly raw, low fructose diet. And thanks to Arugula for posting the chart which caused me to further explore fructose, I'm so happy to have found this information!

Hi Sunshine!

Don't give up on fruit! I think ultimately you'll find you're not in the category of people who can't eat fruit, and you'll find that it's your friend. ;-)

However, you can't take Zeolite without drinking MASSIVE amounts of water-- it dehydrates you like crazy. In fact it's undoubtedly very dangerous to do so, as it's a very potent compound.

As to the malapsorption/intolerance of fruit being set in stone, if I'm any example, it's probably not so, or VERY rarely so in some very unique humans who have some rare genetic defect?

Back to me as an example: I used to have candida and hypoglycemia when I was younger (I'm 57 now) and I had a real hard time eating a lot of fruit, even though I loved it. I didn't have a condition, I was just toxic. I love fruit now and it's the mainstay of my diet.

I have a friend who 'can't' eat raw fruit because she has some kind of intestinal malabsorption problem (actually, I think she has colitis, if I remember correctly)-- she's in real bad shape-- but does that mean that fruit is the enemy? No. My friend has no 'friendly' bacteria in her gut and has had this problem for years. If she can change to a raw diet, fast, maybe juice fast, I'm sure at some point she could eat fruit.

And so. . . maybe it isn't. ;-)

Sharrhan:


[www.facebook.com]

The first link said this disease strikes 1 in 20,000 people. There aren't even 2000 people who read this forum, so its hardly like that there is even 1 person here affected by this disease.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2007 12:54AM by Bryan.

Sunshine,

Thanks for being brave and posting this topic. I've never been able to thrive on high fruit, as some of the others here have.

Here are a few symptoms that I noticed after becoming high fruit raw. Though, I am not as high fruit as some here, in the past I was low fruit 50 % raw vegetarian, and was far healthier than I even am now, at 90% raw, high fruit.

Symptom 1) My hands aged and got ugly. Serioiusly, up till one year ago, I had beautiful hands. I'm 43, and even my bank teller mentioned I had beautiful hands (she was a young girl in her 20's) . 1 year later, my hands are aged and old looking. They used to be long, slender and youthful.

2) My hair is 1/2 as thick as it was. I used to have gorgeous thick hair.

3) High fruit breaks me out. My fat intake is not to blame. I eat the exact same amount of fat (avocadoes, flax, nuts and seeds, as I did before going 90% raw, and my skin was very nice and I always got compliments.)

I think it is the high fruit. I always in the past, when I was 50% raw/low fruit, juiced veggies, but very rarely juiced fruit, and my health was thriving.

The extra 40% raw, is mostly fruit, so past was

50% raw/mostly veggies.

now

90% raw 40% veggies/40% fruit, 10% nuts/seeds and 10% cooked.

The only difference is the increased fruit, and decreased cooked vegetarian, really.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2007 12:54AM by Rawrrr!.

Rawrrr,

You say your old diet versus new diet is:

old: 50% cooked, 50% raw veggies
new: 10% cooked, 40% raw veggies, 40% fruit, 10% nuts/seeds

The addition of 40% fruit is not the only change in your diet. How can you be sure that it is the cause of your aging symptoms? You added 10% nuts/seeds (mostly fat), and you decreased the cooked by 40%.

In any case, you certainly have a diet you can fall back on where you thrived, that is the 50% cooked and 50% raw veggies. Rather than go forward, perhaps you would better thrive going back.

Bryan, thanks for your response, but if you re-read my post, I've eaten about 10% nuts and seeds for the past 20 something years. At the beginning of my raw journey, I did eat alot of gourmet foods, which as we know are high fat, though that lasted for about 2 months, because it was 1) too high in fat, 2) too expensive, 3) I read here that it was bad for me and agreed with the research I've done. My fat intake is the same as it has been for 20 something years, about 50 grams a day. As a matter a fact, I used to use cold-pressed olive oil for years, like it was going out of style, so I stopped using it when I went all raw. I've been calculating my nutrient intake, fanatically, for over 20 years.

Bryan, that is wonderful you and others can thrive on fruit. I'm not dissing fruit. There are some people, however, who cannot thrive on high fruit. Believe me, I've always had weird symptoms with high fruit, since childhood.

I've been trying a high veggie/low fruit (I did not say no fruit) and this seems to be working well for me. Everytime I increase my fruit, my hair starts falling out more, and then I cut back and it stops the rapid shedding.

Good thing I love salads, and I intend to go back to all my meals, revolving around a salad, as it always did in the past. If it's not broke, don't break it.

The only other thing I can think of that I cut off "cold turkey" is dairy and eggs. I've added back raw dairy, but just a little, just to to see how it goes, and so far so good.

I also got a blood test, and it came back all within normal ranges, so that is good. My cholesterol has always been very low, so that is good.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2007 02:00AM by Rawrrr!.

If the disease strikes 1 in 20,000 people, then the expected number of people affected by it here, assuming that say 200 people read this forum, is
200*(1/20000)=0.01 of a person.

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

I probably don't have that disease, but still the same, TOO MUCH fruit, is not good for ME.

I'm happy you all can thrive on your fruit! That is great, but I like a exciting wide variety of vegetarian foods, so I'm very happy without the high fruit. That worked for me for the past 20 something years, Maybe if I increase the raw veggies, I can thrive even more.

Rawrrr, oh my god the aged hands ME TOO!!! I just noticed it yesterday in fact, that in the 4 months I've been doing high fruit that my hands aged frighteningly! Now in my case I suppose the dehydrating effects of zeolite might've contributed but I can't do high fruit without zeolite anyway so what's the difference.

And yes me too, I've been somewhat fruit intolerant since I was a kid (we always had mountains of fruit in the house- I ate it just because it was always there but it def made me feel slightly yucky, unlike the cucumbers & peppers which I could snack on endlessly and love.)

Also yes, Bryan, fructose intolerance is rare (though somebody has to have it, right?) - but look at the data for fructose malabsorption- that's 1 in 3 people, which def means that anyone on a raw diet should consider their actual degree of fructose tolerance and plan their diets accordingly. Now since it is also stated that the malabsorption version could be precipitated by bad diet, maybe with enough time on a raw diet the body might be able to accept more sweet fruit.

But I think that anyone who's experienced an aversion to fruit from a young age should tread carefully when exploring a higher fruit diet, as kidney or liver failure or death are not markers of optimal health.

Not all fruit contains fructose, so I think it's still perfectly possible to live a nearly-fruitarian existence despite having a fructose metabolizing problem.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2007 02:52AM by sunshine79.

With regards to the 1 in 3 people with fructose absorption issues (if that really is a realistic statistic of this issue), most of the issues around fructose absorption comes from the preponderance of high fructose corn syrup in the American diet. Most Americans are eating tons of fructose but little or no fruit. And when the research is done with fructose, how do you think they prepare this fructose? Do they simply use high fructose corn syrup (which is cooked and thus has it own AGE problems)? In this research, how much is done with whole fruits? None?

Goshia & Bryan, I'm sure they are speculating, how many people have that disease. Intelligence tells us that they can only estimate. Perhaps that may be the reason why there seems to only be a few of us on this forum, with the symptoms of the disease. Why would there not be a possibility that this forum attracts more people with that disease, since raw foodist eat fruits and veggies, so more people with that disease would pop up here, rather than a forum for classic car lovers, since the general public eats less fruit. Just common logic.

My lifelong experience was with raw fruit, and not fructose corn sweetener.

Bryan & Goshia, why are fruitarians offended that we like high veggies? I'm not offended that you like high fruit. Seems like there are more important things to exert your energy, like fighting world hunger or trying to lovingly persuade a cooked foodist into going raw. You both seem so defensive. We are just supporting each other who feel we have this problem. I think we know ourselves, better than anyone else. There is a world outside the box.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2007 03:38AM by Rawrrr!.

I think that there is a far simpler explanation than that: Digestion and other health problems due to the cooked food diet. It is quite natural and common for someone to enter the raw food diet with not much love towards fruit, and then, as body gets healthier, to feel spontaneously drawn to them. Heard it zillions of times. This is a gradual process. I would not worry about speading this up artificially. I do recommend though keeping a mind open.

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2007 03:46AM by rawgosia.

I want to be trusting in fruit.

It is beautiful to me.

I can't live without it, forever.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2007 04:07AM by coconutcream.

Possibly, we both have a physical weakness, just different. The fruitarian cannot tolerate anything else except fruit, and the high veggie raw foodist cannot tolerate high fruit. Who is to say which really is the weaker one? Perhaps you Goshia, did came from a SAD diet and are much newer than I too healthy foods, where my body has been detoxified for the last 20+ years and need more rebuilding with veggies, and you are still so toxic that you may still need cleansing, and at a later time, when you have been healthy for as long as I, you will begin to need rebuilding and will be able to tolerate veggies and other vegan raw foods that are so healthy, like the ones I can enjoy.

Just another way too look at it.

Yes I agree, fruit is beautiful, that is why I love fruit. Vegetables are beautiful too! I love them both.

Rawrrr!

Please eat whatever tastes good to you and makes you feel good. sunshine79 brought our attention to a disease that affects 1 out of 20,000 people, and like Gosia stated, if there are 200 people here, the 1/100 of a person ought to be affected. Yet there are a bunch of people here who are worried now about fruit being unhealthy and maybe they might have this fructose intolerance disease!

When I was talking about fructose malabsorption, did it seem like I was referring to what you (Rawrrr!) ate? Because I thought I was clear that my response, given that it started out with "With regards to the 1 in 3 people with fructose absorption issues", that I was addressing what sunshine79 said "but look at the data for fructose malabsorption- that's 1 in 3 people".

This thread reminds me of a post on another forum, that took some research about fructose causing Advanced Glycation Endproducts(AGE), and then came to the conclusion that fruit was unhealthy and caused premature aging in people. He copied the abstact for the paper called "Advanced glycation end products and nutrition" and came to the conclusion that "How alot of FRUIT can make you OLD real quick!". Its funny, because arugula on this forum is hinting at this exact same conclusion. And now you and sunshine79 are talking about how fruit has caused your hands to become aged and no longer youthful.

You say you have a high-veggie diet. But in fact, even with all the fruit you are eating, you do not have a low-fat diet. You said that you eat 50 grams of fat, that's 450 calories. I am guessing your calorie intake is somewhere between 1500 to 2000 calories. This means your fat intake is somewhere between 30% and 22.5%. The thing about a really high-veggie diet is that fat becomes the dominant energy source. For you, even with 40% fruit, you have as high as a 30% fat intake. If you were to eat even more veggies and no fruit, this fat intake would rise even higher, perhaps to 40% or more (unless you increased your cooked starch intake).

If you feel the best with this kind of diet, then please do what feels the best. But everyone who has come to this board who said they had a high-veggie/low-fruit diet in reality were getting most of their calories from either cooked foods or raw fats. For those that were all raw, their calories came from raw fats. And I have never seen a high-veggie/low-fat person stay all raw for more than a few months.

Apparently what ever the percentage I was eating was ok, because on the beach, in a brazillian bikini, I was mistaken for being in my 20's and as my sons girlfriend, just last summer. And my hair never fell out, not to mention I never felt better.

I got a job at a health food store when I was 17. My hair almost stood straight up on my head, when I read the books on my lunch breaks, about all the crap that I was consuming.

I've been doing colonics, fasting and cleanses since I was about 18, when I first became a vegan. Dr. Walker, Pavlo Airola, Bernard Jensen & Paul Bragg, were my heros at 18 yrs old. I've never had a junk food binging stage ever. Eating healthy has been an obsession, maybe even to the point of being an eating disorder, because I would and will not eat anything non-organic and or unhealthy. Ironically, even though I did not realize it, I was very high raw, because I logically knew that cooking food distroys nutrients. I even had an argument one Christmas, with my aunt, when I was still in my 20's. She was "cooking to death" the food.

The reason I say all this, is simply because, there are a few here, who seem to portray, that they "have arrived", and no one else has, and seem to want to be looked up to, and look down their noses, it seems.

Some people have been doing this healthy lifestyle for years, but we are not cocky about it, and still learning with all the new discoveries in health and nutrition. Some of us, such as myself, are old hippies and back in the day, we were called "granolas".

I do believe high fruit is good for some. I do believe high fruit is not good for everyone.

I love to make my green smoothies and juice green lemonades. I do eat fruit. I love fruit. But I also love and thrive on other healthy foods too, and cannot just eat fruit all day long, with little of anything else, 24/7. Hurray for you if you "can". It does not mean you are healthier. It doesn't really mean much, except for simply, you personally do better on a high fruit diet.

My boyfriend competes on the XBox site, to see who is the nerdiest. Here, many seem to compete with who is the rawist, or the fruitiest, or the veganist, or..... and I do respect that this is a vegan site. Protecting animals is one of the most important things in my life.

I find it silly competing with internet people who I've never met nor probably never will. I'm here to learn, and hopefully help others.

I wish you the best in your fruitarianism, and that is great that it has been a blessing for you.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2007 05:16AM by Rawrrr!.