Day 25 of My Top 30 for 30:
Fruit has many amazing properties! It’s high in a variety of key vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytochemicals, including vitamin C and potassium. Particular types of fruit can also be rich in carotenoids, folate, iron, and even calcium.
Fresh fruit is low in calorie density, meaning large quantities of fruit that help us feel full and satisfied don’t contain an excess of calories. It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to fill one’s stomach to a satisfying level while knowing one is eating an appropriate number of calories for their body’s needs.
Fruit is also very easy to digest, allowing the body more energy for healing, repair, and other processes. Interestingly, the ease of fruit digestion is related to its simple carbohydrate content, meaning the body has to do little else to be able to obtain energy from fruit.
On a mostly to all raw vegan diet, fruit is an important source of calories, and without it, calories have to come from somewhere. As vegetables are so low in calorie density, you can’t get enough calories even if you spend all day stuffing yourself full of vegetables and do little else. The other major sources of calories on a raw food diet are fat sources. Most people don’t realize how much fat is in a typical raw food diet that is low in fruit. All those nuts, seeds, coconuts, avocados, and oils as staples in one’s diet end up being very calorie dense. People don’t feel nearly as energetic as they could, and they can’t fill up their stomachs with satisfying amounts of these foods without consuming an excess of calories. After a while they may discontinue eating raw saying that raw food did not work for them. Despite all of the benefits of fruit, there continue to be rumors about it that don’t hold up to scientific scrutiny or individual biochemical reality. We will continue this conversation in further posts.
There has been a lot of talk in the raw food community about fruit playing an important role in our natural diet as humans, and there has been quite a bit of controversy surrounding the fate of fructose in the human body (does it all turn to fat?) and other rumored concerns about fruit. You can read more about the science behind fruit in our free eBook Our Top 12 Strategies for Long Term Success on a Raw Plant-Based Diet which you can receive by signing up for our email list by using the sign-up form in the right margin of this webpage.
What are your favorite fruits?