to think fruit can't be all that bad.

[manicinsomniac]

I feel like we're in danger of branding fruit as the next 'evil-food-that-must-be-avoided'!

I see and hear so many comments (not just on here) on the lines of:
'fruit should be an occasional treat'
'sugar is sugar'
'a zero sugar diet is best'
'your body can't tell the difference between an apple and haribo.'
'limit fruit and eat as much veg as you can'
'low carbing is the best kind of diet to follow and fruits are really high in carbs'

etc.

Is fruit the new bread? (another low fat, previously thought of as healthy food that has been a British staple for centuries).

I'm already scared of most foods, I feel like I don't have the time or the energy to obsess over fruit as well (apart from bananas and avocados).

I know it has very little protein and it doesn't keep you full for long but it's healthy ... right? There's not need to limit it ... is there?

"Nobody gets fat from eating too much fruit".... well, maybe no human, because no human's ever lived on fruit alone, but I saw a programme on the Barbary apes on Gibraltar, fed loads of fruit by tourists, and looking distinctly porky and pot-bellied.

Me too Mim
There was a post on chat about someone's daily food intake and nearly every reply was about how they needed to cut out carbs.

To my mind it was a healthy, balanced 'diet'. Carbs are not evil! If you munch your way through half a loaf of bread polished off with three bagels, then yes you might want to cut back but having a slice of whole meal toast for breakfast and some wholemeal pasta at dinner is ok!

Fruit is defintely better than sweets, since they contain fibre and vitamins.

However some of us are much more sensitive to sugar than others. My body finds it difficult to handle, I get extreme blood-sugar crashes, and when I eat bread and fruit it triggers binge-eating.

So I have to be careful and be one of those extreme low-carbers.
I don't feel faint because I have replaced the carbs with fat, it fuels you on this way of eating instead.

Whatever works for you, do it.

Too many people confuse healthy eating with dieting. You can lose weight, if that's what you want, by eating healthily with no restrictions on food types but try telling that to the serial dieters.

Re: Monkeys and fruit:
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/14/banana-ban-monkeys-health-paignton-zoo

Crossed post Briar That wasn't aimed at you.

Food fads are nonsense :)

Recommending this www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03t8r4h/Horizon_20132014_Sugar_v_Fat/

I reckon we are pretty much evolved to live on fruit and meat, like chimps.. When DD2 was little, that was basically her diet. She had the most amazing, glowing skin I have ever seen on a human being.

I'm not trying to lose weight. I'm actually over a stone underweight. That diet maintains my weight, I don't lose or gain on it.

Mim I think there's probably more carbs in my diet than you're imagining. More than protein in fact. Today I had 1162 calories which consisted of 161g of carbs, 9g of fat, 102g of protein and 73g of sugar. I definitely don't low carb!

point taken about the drinks - but no, I'm firmly addicted to the fizz, the caffeine and the faux chocolately warmth!

The 'natural' human diet is a highly contentious issue, I'm pretty sure that chimps have a digestive system which differs significantly from That of humans.

For one thing we are adapted to eat cooked food, and many human cultures are predominantly vegetarian.

Humans are pretty amazing. All cultures eat some sort of animal protein/fat, however people in warmer countries have a lot of great carb food they can live on and base a lot of their diet on (like fruit of you live in a rainforest) people in cold climates have traditionally been forced to eat a strict low-carb type of diet, at least during the cold months. Inuits have traditionally lived on fish, meat and fat and still been healthy and happy.

Humans can live on all sort of food. But remember, today's fruit is very, very sweet compared to the original wild versions.

I doubt that humans have been cooking long enough for our bodies to evolve to require cooked food.

Moomin are you not familiar with the theory explained here?

www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/cooked-food-diet-primates-brains_n_2033975.html

Interesting link about monkeys & fruit Briar

LIttleen that horizon program was a joke and full of bad science. For a start, people who have a low carb diet do not eat zero carbohydrate and do eat vegetables! It was very poorly done IME, which was disappointing as it should have been a good experiment.

Well it is an interesting theory, concerning homo erectus not homo sapien.

oh that 'documentary'
it was mildly amusing and entertaining but from an academic / scientific point of view useless

I'm really surprised that anyone would take it seriously enough to cite it as evidence

I think you are confused Moomin, the point about the energy demands of the brain and body applies equally to homo sapiens since we are evolved from H erectus.

'in the late 1990s when Harvard University primatologist Richard Wrangham proposed that the brain began to expand rapidly 1.6 million to 1.8 million years ago in our ancestor, Homo erectus, because this early human learned how to roast meat and tuberous root vegetables over a fire. Cooking, Wrangham argued, effectively predigested the food, making it easier and more efficient for our guts to absorb calories more rapidly'

Well there is actually no consensus as to whether homo erectus is our ancestor or a parallel species like the Neanderthals.

There's nothing bad about fruit. As long as it's part of a balanced diet.

And there's the rub. What exactly is a balanced diet?

Unfortunately, our notions of a balanced diet are totally skewed by what the major food manufacturers decide we should eat.

Five portions a day? A marketing campaign. Surely not, I hear you cry! But if not, why does it vary by country? Countries around the world will tell you that it's 7 or 9 or 10 portions a day. Because it's based on the fruit and vegetable companies who support the campaign.

There's also a massive difference with regard to advice as to what you should eat depending on whether you are a normal weight or whether you are overweight. What you should eat to maintain your weight will be very different from what you should eat if you are overweight.

But the reality is that in the UK, now, 64% of people are overweight

Funnily enough, obesity levels have been increasing since the early 80s, which was the same point in time that we also being advised to cut the levels of fat in our diet, and to eat more fruit.

Any programme that tries to make conclusions based on two people should be absolutely laughed out of town.

And any of you that have been influenced by it should have a very long, hard look at yourselves. Really ...

i dont think anyone would seriously suggest that fruit is bad for you

I even reject the premis that fruit juice ( pure) is bad for you

What drives me nuts, is the half herted pathetic attempts at low carbing by people who must think its trendy to say ' oh i'm low carbing' or something, becuase without understanding the premis behind LCing, its not unusual to find a thread 'where am i going wrong LCing, i had a yoghurt, some nuts and two pieces of fruit'

sorry slightly off topic - drives me fucking nuts though

still missing the point there Moomin

I agree with you Custy, apart from the comment about fruit juice. Fruit juice is just pure sugar which creates a massive spike in blood sugar. Even if it has bits in it!

But absolutely to the rest of your post.

clearly several features of the modern diet are seriously bad for you, witness the vast amounts of metabolically disordered people!