1wildheartsease I wonder why he thinks fruit is a requirement? Surely it's got to be better to eat a load of veg, salad, etc than to eat sugar in any form? There's plenty of fibre in veg and there's no reason why on this woe we can't 'eat a rainbow' to give a variety of vitamins and micronutrients (and yes black olives do count as 'purple food'). If you look at many of the 'eat a rainbow' diagrams they are full of strawberries, cherries, oranges, pineapple, mango, banana, blueberries and purple grapes. Even in the 'green' section there are green grapes and not much in the way of leafy greens. Plus, so many of those are imported - where are the local blackberries, the swedes, brussel sprouts, spinach etc?
The best diagrams start with white (cauliflower, mushrooms, garlic, shallots, white asparagus), move through yellow / orange (with baby sweetcorn, turnip, carrot, yellow courgettes), reds with tomatoes, red pepper, radish, rhubarb, green with leeks, watercress, lettuce, avocado (plus all the lovely FLGV we enjoy on here) and the blue/black includes red cabbage, aubergine, beetroot, black olives.
I find it really difficult to know what science is correct for fats. A low-fat diet leaves me hungry (and without the will power to avoid unhealthy foods). We used to be directed towards sunflower oil, but I now avoid it completely. I think I achieve a good balance between plant-based oils (avocado, coconut, olive) and delicious dairy butter or cream. Certainly with no biscuits, cakes or manufactured foods I'm not having trans-fats, which seem to be the worst.
I eat pulses once a week (not grains) and in addition to losing almost 3 stones, my bp has reduced from 200/120 to 117/73
In my health experiment of n=1 I think I'll carry on without the fruit and grains.