Why Fruits are not as Healthy as Vegetables: Infographic
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Here’s my take on this Infographic
- Don’t put fruits and vegetables into the same category. How many times have you heard eat more fruits and vegetables? Too many, right. But it is not a good advice. It turns out fruits are not as healthy as veggies. The reason is their relatively high sugar content. Sure, they have some fiber. Sure, they have some nutritive substances. Sure, they have some vitamins. Sure, they have organic water. But the adverse effects of the sugar content outweighs everything else.
- The main form of sugar is Fructose. Fructose is actually what makes ordinary sugar sweet. Ordinary table sugar is half fructose, half glucose. And fructose is the worse part. You ask why? Well, because of the ways it is metabolized in the body. It has to be metabolized by the liver, unlike glucose, which is metabolized in the body. So fructose is metabolized almost entirely in the liver, where it is used to replenish the glycogen (form of glucose) or produce triglycerides (fats).
- Fructose increases the appetite. Like any other form of carb, fructose is not satiating. Very quickly after consumption, it promotes food cravings. If you want to reduce your food cravings eat more healthy fats as well as moderate amounts of proteins. They are much better for that.
- Fructose creates advanced glycation end products (AGEs). By linking to protein molecules, fructose creates toxic substances responsible for accelerated aging, oxidative stress, and atherosclerosis.
- Fructose feeds the unhealthy bacteria in your guts. For optimal health, you would want to reduce the amount of unhealthy bacteria, and increase the amount of healthy bacteria in your stomach.
- Limit your daily consumption of fructose to less than 25 grams. There are fruits that are high in fructose, like raisins, dates, and figs. Instead to satisfy your need for sweet food, use low fructose fruits, like berries (chokeberries are our favorites). Beware of the obvious as well as hidden sources of fructose too. Keyword to be afraid of HFCS, that is, high fructose corn syrup.
I just Googled kiwi, my favorite fruit to snack on while I watch a movie or read a book, and I’m amazed how much sugar it has!! I honestly thought it was a healthier option than strawberries or peaches, mostly because it’s not as sweet. Lesson learned! When you say to stay away from fruits do you mean completely or should we just stick to those 25 grams daily? Fruits are the only sugary thing in my diet and it would pretty tough for me to cut those too.
Many people think that fruits are as healthy as vegetables. Unfortunately, they are not. When we are young, our bodies can handle sugar in general and fructose in particular more easily. As we grow older, the problem becomes more apparent.
And yes, stick to 25 grams of total fructose consumption a day. Less is better, if you can manage, but 25 grams is considered safe. That’s what experts suggest, anyway. One medium kiwi has about 3.5 grams of fructose, so you can do the math. Here is a useful link:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/02/28/new-study-confirms-fructose-affects-your-brain-very-differently-than-glucose.aspx
Also don’t forget to add the hidden fructose in processed foods to your total daily fructose amount. Many of them contain high fructose corn syrup, a devastating fructose-rich ingredient. If you don’t read the labels you can easily cross the line.
Fruit are not what they used to be either. They are processed, treated, and handled differently. Most fruit these days is nothing like it was in the early 1900’s. Thanks mass distribution! Not all fruit have high amounts of sugar either. Avocados and Tomatoes are two examples. I am not bit on fruit but I do enjoy juice when I feel I need the vitamin C.
Yes, that’s very true. Fruits are not what they used to be. Check this post:
http://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-fruits-and-vegetables-looked-like-before-we-domesticated-them
for some examples of fruits and vegetables in their original state before people domesticated them.
It is not just the appearance or taste that has been tweaked – nutrition quality and sugar content have been changed as well. It’s not that hard to guess the direction: definitely toward more sweet produce.
Btw. avocado is by far my favorite fruit! Thanks for the comment.