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Do we need to eat fruit?

How to curb your cravings and stay away from the ice cream!
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Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby efcliz » Tue Aug 07, 2012 10:12 am

Just a silly question really. I do eat some fruit, but I don't really like much of it. I know about the 5 a day camapign, of course, and usually eat far more than that, but my question is, if you are eating a lot of a wide range of vegetables, is there any health reason to eat fruit? (I'm talking about sweet fruit really, not tomatoes, aubergines etc).

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Re: Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue Aug 07, 2012 11:29 am

I don't think there is any huge reason to eat "dessert" fruit as such, especially since as you point out yourself you are in fact eating the fruits that are classified gastronomically as veg, so you aren't really rejecting a huge category of foods

The point of 5 a day and similar campaigns_ is to get you to eat not just a minimum weight of fruit and veg, but also a greater variety - by missing out the dessert fruit you are skipping some colours that don't appear in other foods very much, and my understanding is that that the greater range of colours in fruit & veg the better, as it is a [very] rough guide to the range of micronutrients in them so you could in theory at least be missing out on some of them.

For example lutein - an orange pigment good for your eyes, I know about this one as I take supplements. Present in fruit but also in dark green veg, kale is actually one of the best sources, and the related compound zeaxanthin is found in maize. So theoretically by cutting out the dessert fruit you could miss out, but in practice it is probably a minor source even in my diet, and i think the risk of missing out on anything significant must be small) as long as you eat a variety of veg in a variety of colours & types.

I would miss apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, plums, greengages, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, apricots, figs, and grapes if I didn’t eat them though! I can’t imagine not wanting to eat them.

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Re: Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby efcliz » Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:23 pm

I'm just not a fan of most fruit, Sue. My husband jokes that I have the least sweet tooth in the world and it is true. I wouldn't miss any of the fruits you list at all - I do eat bananas for a mid morning snack, and I still make whole fruit drinks from oranges, grapefruit and sometimes pineapple. But I've been putting soft fruit on muesli for ages and it just dawned on me this morning how much I dislike it, and whether I'd be better off with a grain salad with vegetables in for breakfast.

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Re: Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby Wokman » Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:48 pm

efcliz wrote:I'm just not a fan of most fruit

I thought I was the only one in the world who wasn't fussy on fruit. If there are strawberries or grapes in the house I might eat one or two, the same goes for melon if it ready cut to eat, but I wouldn't bother cutting a melon to have a piece.
OH loves fruit, but I would never buy it for myself. I have been the same since I was a young child and I don't eat sweets of any kind.
I prefer savoury to sweet any day.

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Re: Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby efcliz » Tue Aug 07, 2012 6:39 pm

Hurrah, we should start a group! These days, I'll eat a desert if I'm offered a decent vegan one, just because it happens so rarely, and I want to encourage people to make more of them. But if the only fruit I ever had in my house again was lemon, lime and maybe the odd green papaya, I'd be happy with that!

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Re: Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue Aug 07, 2012 6:45 pm

No you see I don't consider myself to have a sweet tooth at all - I am bemused by the British habit of sugaring fruit, for example

But most fruit ain't that sweet, so I don't entirely buy that fruit aversion is due to an absence of a sweet tooth - many strawberries and apples for example aren't as sweet as many tomatoes or bell peppers

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Re: Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby jeral » Thu Aug 09, 2012 3:54 pm

I don't know about the impact of any specific medical considerations if any known; logically to me as a layman there's no actual need to eat fruit if one is eating a variety of vegetables. As an aside, I have to eat fruit the minute I buy it as I know it will sit in the fruit bowl languishing otherwise, so you're not alone efcliz in preferring veg.

It's a good idea for me to check periodically which foods have which vits/mins to make sure I'm not drifting back to tinned peas lol. This site is good if a little wordy on some pages. The essential nutrients page includes inter alia in which foods each item is found: http://www.whfoods.com/nutrientstoc.php

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Re: Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby Gillthepainter » Fri Aug 10, 2012 7:16 pm

I should think you are fine without fruit if you are getting your nutrients elsewhere. Your diet is probably more considered than most, Liz.
I eat it sometimes, but I'm not mad about fruit in general.

Grape popping is fine whilst I'm at the computer I guess.

Although I adore avocado - it's one of my all time favourite tastes .... I can't be bothered to google if it's a fruit of a vegetable and I cannot remember off the top of my head. I just love it, that's all.

I guess you're also doing OK so long as your intake includes citrus ... scurvy and all that business!

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Re: Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby Stokey Sue » Fri Aug 10, 2012 7:40 pm

Gillthepainter wrote:Although I adore avocado - it's one of my all time favourite tastes .... I can't be bothered to google if it's a fruit of a vegetable and I cannot remember off the top of my head. I just love it, that's all.


Fruit

the stone is a giveaway ;)

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Re: Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby Johnson » Sat Oct 20, 2012 6:10 am

Hi all the people here .

It is important to note that fruits plays vital role if we talk from health point of view because of the fact that these are enrich with vitamins , iron and other contents . What do you say about fruits ? .

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Re: Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby Global_Worming » Sun Oct 21, 2012 10:07 am

There are quite a few types of fruit and veg that are unhealthy for me as I produce kidney stones.
White flour and margarine has to by law in the UK include added vitamins to ward of rickets for example, are they healthy?

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Re: Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby Stokey Sue » Sun Oct 21, 2012 5:56 pm

There's very little iron in most fruit - plants aren't a very good source generally, but what there is tends to lurk in the green leafy parts

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Re: Do we need to eat fruit?

Postby MichaelAnsara » Wed Apr 02, 2014 1:14 pm

Fruits are best food for health and fitness. Fruits have all important nutrition that are useful for our body so i love to eat fruits and this is my personal suggestion to everyone for eating fruits.

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