I’m so amazed at how many people I meet today who will tell me that they no longer eat fruits because the sugars in the fruits are harmful to their health. Some even tell me that fruits are not good for their blood type, body type or the kind of diet they adhere to like the Zone, LA, Atkins, etc.

This is a very sad situation when fruits which are considered to be some of the most nutritious foods on the planet are avoided and excluded from the diet of those who may actually need them the most.

If you are one of the many who avoids fruits, let me give you some logical and scientific reasons why you should consider putting fruits back into your diet.

Improve Your Health With Some Incredible Fruits

Nature endowed us with a sweet tooth for good reasons. Naturally sweet fruits provide most of the nutrients we need, and in the exact proportions we need them. Did you know that our greatest nutrient needs are water and sugar. And, fruits are the best supplier of these two nutrients.

Our bodies use the simple sugars found in fruits for fuel. Scientifically we know that glucose is our body’s primary energy source. Every day we must eat foods that have adequate glucose content that is easy for our body to utilize for producing energy. Fruits are the highest in glucose content followed by vegetables.

Energy from Starches, Protein, and Fats

Our bodies use glucose as our main energy supply. The most efficient way for the body to get energy is from fruits. For example, Dr. Joel Robbins says that “fruits are 90% efficient to the human body, meaning, if there are 100 calories in a banana, it only takes 10 of the calories to digest and process that food. The other 90 calories are for usable, life maintaining energy” (Robbins, pg. 1). That’s quite an efficient way for the body to produce energy. In other words, fruits are positive energy foods.

Can we get energy from eating vegetables? Yes we can, but as Dr. Robbins says, vegetables are not quite as efficient in producing energy for us as fruits. “...it takes roughly 90% calories of a vegetable to digest and process it, leaving only 10 calories for usable energy” (pg. 1). That still makes vegetables positive energy foods.

What about the body’s ability to convert protein, starches and fats into energy? When we eat protein, fat, or starch (rice or pasta), these foods must be converted to simple sugars first if the calories are to be burned for energy. This process requires many nutrients and uses valuable energy. Also, when we heat (cook) these foods, nutrients are destroyed and the body has to work very hard to digest and process them to produce energy. Compared to fruits and vegetables, they are negative energy foods for they take more energy to process them than they give in return.

Fresh fruits stand out as our best food sources, not just for producing energy but also for meeting all of our nutritional needs.

Some Incredible Fruits!

I’ve always wanted to write about a few incredible fruits that I grew up eating as part of my daily diet. I see these fruits today, in abundance, in the organic grocery stores in Seattle, but I don’t see a lot of people buying them. Could it be because they are not familiar with their taste and the wonderful health promoting properties they have? Not only are these fruits delicious but they can strengthen your various physical organs and systems (i.e., respiratory, immune......etc.). So enjoy the information and if you find it valuable, do pass it on to your friends and family members. There is nothing more powerful than networking with each other to help us become our own best health promoters. Besides we might be able to get many of our friends and family who abandoned consuming fruits to include them back into their diet, thus contributing greatly to their health!

CHERIMOYA:

My mom and dad made sure we had cherimoyas in our house every day when they were in season. My mom told me that this fruit actually saved my dad’s life during World War II. Mom and dad lived in Singapore during World War II. My dad suffered from Beriberi during the war; a vitamin B deficiency disease. During that time our wise family doctor suggested to my mother to feed my dad a few cherimoyas every day because it was high in the vitamin B complex group. The result: my dad was totally cured in a short period of time.

Science has identified 25 components in vitamin B complex and cherimoyas are one of the best sources to get all of them into your body.

The taste is part mango, part pineapple and part banana. Just delicious. Eat the white meat and throw away the black seeds. If you buy cherimoyas and their shell is hard, they will soften on your kitchen counter. Try this incredible fruit. Every cell in your body will thank you for all the vitamin B they are benefiting from.

PINEAPPLE:

All of you probably know that pineapples help with the digestive processes. You may also know that pineapples have anti-inflammatory properties, so they can help with chronic bronchitis and sore throat. But here is where the power of this fruit is unmatched. The enzyme bromelain in the pineapple is a protein digesting enzyme and it literally digests foreign microbes or diseased cells in your body. Not only that, but if you think you have parasites, guess what you can do! Eat nothing by raw pineapple and take some bromelain and plant based enzymes capsules for 3 days. The combination of raw pineapples and the bromelain and plant enzymes can eradicate most parasites, even the kinds that cover themselves with a protective coat and form a little cyst. The bromelain in the pineapple can destroy the whole cyst, including the larvae. Your tongue may get a little sore, but the benefits are worth the pineapple fast, inexpensive and no drug side-effects. But, don’t do this fast unless you’ve strengthened your immune system first, especially your digestive system with friendly bacteria for a few months.

How do you determine how to buy a ripe pineapple? Smell the base of the pineapple and if it smells sweet, then it’s ripe and ready to eat.

MANGOS:

The mango is the single best fruit source of cancer-fighting carotenoids, it offers more beta carotene than either apricots or cantaloupe (Natural Health, Oct. 2000, pg. 162).

A superior source of vitamins A and C and a good source of potassium. However, the most important health quality of mangos is how fiber rich it is. One mango contains 7 g. of digestion-helping fiber and much of this is soluble fiber, which keeps cholesterol low (pg. 162). Step aside oat and wheat bran, here comes mangos! Just eat one a day for breakfast and watch how that help with your elimination!

Make sure to buy only organic mangos because most imported mangos are sprayed with toxic chemicals to kill fruit flies or pests. Domestic organic mangos will even be better. Buy mangos when they are soft and the skin is yellow.

TAMARIND:

Some of you who’ve tasted tamarind may wonder how can this be a fruit! It’s so sour! Well, lemons are considered a fruit and tamarind is just like lemons. Some weird people like me love the sour taste of tamarind. I could just eat a whole bag of tamarind in one sitting. But I’ll suffer the consequence; diarrhea! Tamarind is a powerful natural laxative. More powerful than prunes. Those who have constipation problems can rejoice with this incredible natural laxative.

Tamarind also aids digestion, lowers fevers, and has antiseptic effects. It reduces nausea in pregnancy, and treats jaundice, fever, and dysentery. Tamarind is also known to be high in vitamin C.

Tamarind can now be found in grocery stores in the fruit section. It has a tan/brown pod-like shape and paper like skin. Buy only closed pods, not broken ones and make sure the pod color is closer to tan not toward gray. Press on the papery skin to break it and remove the strings and seeds. Eat the black moist meat. Do open the meat part with your fingers and check the inside part. If it’s totally white, it’s good to eat. If you find little seedy brown things inside the meat, then it’s not good to eat (this indicates that it’s decomposing).

If you have a severe case of constipation, you are better off drinking a glass of tamarind juice at night before you go to sleep and another glass first thing when you wake up in the morning. To make juice, buy dried tamarind in Thai or Chinese groceries. Sometimes it is sold as paste, liquid, or just dried. If you get dried tamarind, soak in water for an hour, then using a fork, puree the pulp, mix and drink.

You could also use dried or tamarind paste for cooking. Many Thai recipes use tamarind fruit and lemon grass for their sour taste instead of salt. Now you can avoid the harmful side effects of salt and get the same sour taste for your recipes. Tamarind is truly an incredible fruit.

DATES:

This sugary sweet fruit is one of the most ancient plant foods of the Middle East. Dates are used in the Middle East for weakness, for symptoms of aging, and lack of sexual desire. Most of us are aware of the dates nutritional value and high sugar content which sometimes can be up to 60 percent. However, most of you may not be aware that dates have complete protein (all the essential amino acids). Also dates are good sources of B12, niacin, iron, and potassium. Present in small amounts in dates are calcium, chlorine, magnesium and vitamins A, B1 and B2.

Consider giving your children fresh dates instead of processed treats and don’t exclude mom and dad from also enjoying this wonderful fruit.

FIGS

One of my very favorite fruits. Figs have many medicinal properties. They aid digestion by cleansing and soothing the intestine; they also treat dysentery and constipation. An old folk remedy is to eat dried figs just before going to bed if you want to get rid of a lingering cough.

Of all the common fruits, the fig has the highest sugar content. Dried, a fig is about 50 percent sugar; fresh, about 10 percent. Dried figs have more dietary fiber than prunes, and-ounce for ounce- are higher in calcium than cow’s milk (Wood, pg. 129). According to a report in the scientific journal (Nature April, 1998), in which about 60 species of figs were studied, figs contained up to four times the calcium content of most other fresh foods. Five figs can give you 250 mg of calcium (Delicious Living, November 02). Figs also have high amounts of protein, and abundant magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium.

When I eat them, I will also eat their skin where most of the fiber and also the calcium is.

CHERRIES

Singer Rudy Vallee used to say: “Life is just a bowl of cherries.” That makes me wonder: “Why cherries? Why not plums, pears, or bananas?” I no longer wonder about that! After reading the scientific studies, I learned that cherries contain a host of marvelous compounds that fight diseases including cancer.

The dark coloring material of cherries (tart cherries) is an outstanding source of anthocyanins (an antioxidant). In fact, the antioxidant activity of tart black cherries is greater than that of vitamin E. These dark-colored cherries carry a total of 37.5 mg of anthocyanins in every 100 grams of fruit (Moss, pg. 42).

Cherries also contain pain-relieving compounds and act as an anti-inflammatory. Cherries inhibit a chemical called cyclooxygenase 1 and 2 or cox 1 and 2. Cox inhibitors are also being investigated for anticancer activity. Eating 20 cherries a day provide 25 milligrams of anthocyanins, which help to shut down the enzymes that cause tissue inflammation (pg. 42).

Cherries also contain surprisingly high levels of melatonin, a hormone previously thought to be produced only by the pineal glands in the brain. Melatonin is part of the body's natural way of regulating sleep. Cherries also have anticancer properties (pg. 42).

Plant a cherry tree in your back yard and help yourself to Nature’s incredible cancer fighting fruit.

•••••••••••••••

Fruits are incredible foods. Mankind has thrived on fruits throughout our history. Nutritionally fruits are supreme. Please don’t deprive your body of fruits because you will be depriving it from the best source of energy and its abundance of valuable nutrients. Eat fruits every day especially the above mentioned superstar fruits and watch your health soar.

References:
Gart, Rebecca Broida. (2000). “25 power Foods”, Natural Health, October 2000, pp. 117-128.
Moss, Ralph. (Feb./March 02). “Clinical Trials and the Therapeutic Misconception”. Townsend Letter
      for Doctors and Patients. pp. 41-42.
Robbins, Joel. (1987). Eating for Health and Wellness. Lecture Notes.
Wood, Rebecca. (1999). The new whole Foods Encyclopedia. New York: Penguin Books.
_____________. (Nov. 02). “The Benefits of Fruit”. Delicious Living. p. 41.

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