We've always been told that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. But in recent
years many people have worried that fruit might load our system with an
overabundance of sugar. Can fruit actually be dangerous to your health?
Which fruits might flood your bloodstream with glucose? How much fruit
should you be eating? What exactly is the deal with fruit?
Whole fresh fruit is an interesting one.
In general I think it's a really healthy food, I recommend it,
it's part of my food plan that I give to people to lose weight. There's a serving
of fruit at breakfast, there's a serving of fruit at lunch. I do think that not
everyone's the same when it comes to metabolizing fruit. People who have
extremely sensitive systems when it comes to fructose might find that their
insulin sensitivity doesn't come back as quickly if they're eating fruit.
For everyone I would recommend a cap on how much you eat just in general,
mainly because you can only eat so much food in a day and you want to make sure that
you're eating enough vegetables, you want to make sure you're eating enough foods
from other groups, and so I don't recommend eating fruit all day long.
So in general I'm a big fan of fruit of course. it's delicious,
but I want to caution some people that their blood sugar won't come back into
regulation as quickly if they're eating a bunch of fruit.
I think people can overdo it on fruit.
I think in a culture where we eat so much sugar, even fruit is
considered sugar in the body. I think there's a healthy amount of fruit,
but what I have seen is that when people are feeling healthy and they're feeling good
they're gonna eat maybe one piece of fruit a day, maybe two of the most.
They're not gonna just be eating like an all fruit diet. I've seen people
go very extreme with this stuff.
So one of the first things when a client walks in with
the diagnosis of diabetes is, "Can I eat my favorite fruits?"
And my first response is, absolutely you can have fruits in your diet. It's all about
trying to figure out the right portions and what else is going on in your life.
How are you doing with your blood sugar management? So fruit is a carbohydrate.
Often people don't think about it, but when you look at fruits, let's eat the
whole fruit, because you're getting the fiber, and it's gonna be harder for your
body to break it down quickly. So it's creating the gentle rise rather than the peak and crash.
Fruit is an amazing source of fiber and vitamins and minerals.
So I'm a huge advocate for fruit. But I think we just have to be
careful about the portions that we have. So fruit is still a high sugar food,
and it's much better than a bag of lollies because obviously it comes with nutrients.
So I'm all for having fruit over lollies or sugary foods. But some
people are getting into having, you know, especially the smoothies and the juices
where you have, you know, sometimes six, five to six, seven pieces of fruit condensed,
and the fiber's removed and you've just got the sugar and then the
vitamins and minerals left. So that's a really condensed form of sugar, so I
think in that situation it's too much. But if you're having a couple of whole
pieces of fruit with the skin on every day, then absolutely that's part of a
healthy, nutritious diet. But just too much of it can be an issue, especially for people with diabetes.
So an example: a tennis ball-sized fruit is one serving.
So when you have this, this is going to convert eventually and raise your blood
sugar by 35 points. It could take a good half an hour, 45 minutes, if it's a
piece of fruit. But if you had juice, say, you have the same fruit that's converted
to juice, 100% juice. Half a cup, which is 4 ounces, guaranteed within
15 minutes your blood sugar is up by 35 points.
And that's a quick rise, and it's gonna crash. We feel great when it goes up,
don't feel so great when it comes down. So, for example, if you take an apple,
the outside is typically the insoluble fiber - the peel. The inside of the apple is the
soluble fiber, so that actually binds with our cholesterol and flushes it out.
It also helps with blood sugar management. But the half a cup of juice,
when you think about it, it's already broken down, so there's no fiber.
Our body's capable of immediately absorbing it and raising our blood sugar.
Where as something that, for example, the whole piece of fruit, the apple,
you're going to eat the peel, you're going to eat the inside, it's going to take a while to chew
swallow it, and digest it. So it's gonna cause the gentler rise. So any fruit,
if it's part of your meal, you count it as part of your carb intake for the meal.
But if it's something you're having as a snack, my general rule of thumb for my
clients is have a piece of fruit with some kind of protein. It could be a
string cheese. This is going to give you the perfect amount of carb and protein,
it's not gonna create that spike, you're gonna feel better in the longer run.
All fruit are great in their own way. I think there's some fruit that you have to
be careful about your portions. Bananas are a higher sugar fruit, and often,
because they can be quite large. So you can buy the smaller bananas, they can be
a better portion size if you're not as active during the day, or if you've got diabetes.
Things like your berries and your apples - they're a lower lower sugar fruit,
so if you're dealing with blood sugar issues, then you're better off just to
have your berries or an apple rather than a big banana, from a blood sugar
perspective. But overall, any fruit is good fruit, it's just the portion that
you have it in. And that will be individual, depending on your needs.
Now you can see that there are differences between fruits and how
they'll affect your blood sugar. But most any fruit, eaten in moderation, will
supply you with a wide array of essential nutrients. Which fruit is your
favorite, and how much fruit do you eat? Let us know in the comments
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