7 Myths and Truths About Fruit

Summary from the book...
Your Natural Diet: Alive Raw Foods"
by T. C. Fr and David Klein


1. Myth: Fruitarians suffer nutritional imbalances and deficiencies


Truth: The charge that fruit eaters suffer nutritional imbalances and deficiencies finds no basis. Fruits are the only foods that create a food package to proportionately meet the nutrient needs of their biological symbionts (humans). In fact, fruits, eater accordingly to their season, furnish us with every nutrient factor in plenteousness greater than we require. The ancient Greeks whom we admire so much for their statuesque bodies, were fruit eaters. Most ate heavily on apples, dates, oranges, olives, figs and grapes.

2. Myth: Fruit eaters cannot maintain weight and become too thin


Truth: Personally, I (T. C. Fry) did lose from 200 pounds to 126 on a mostly fruit diet. But on the same diet and regimen i gained back to the 150 pound range. I had excellent muscular development on a diet consisting almost entirely of fruits with very few nuts and seeds.

As before pointed out, the Greeks thrived on fruitarian diets. Phytagoras, one of the giants of Grecian literature, philosophy and mathematics, was a fruitarian and had a whole school of followers who, likewise, became fruitarians. Actually, the teaching of Phytagoras very much parallel the teachings of Gautama Buddha with whose teachings Phytagoras became conversant on his sojour in India. Buddha was, in essence, a tree worshipper as were fruitarian societies. Buddhas love-affair with bananas is well-known. In India bananas are known as the food of the wise. I maintain my weight very well on a mostly fruitarian diet with some nuts, seeds and vegetables. So do others.

3. Myth: Fruit eaters become over-alkaline and often suffer alkalosis


Truth: We humans can harmlessly excreate excess alkaline end-products, but, if we get excess acid-forming end-products as from meats, animal products, cereal foods, breads, etc., we really have problems! The body must rob its bones and other alkaline stores and structures for the alkalis, mostly calcium, necessary to neutralize the acid end-products.

Whoever originated this charge of "alkalosis" simply did not know or ignored physiology. I have had alkalosis, but not in the 24 years i´ve been fruitarian. When i was a conventional eater i had alkalosis (heartburn) so much i would take too many antacid tablets or too much bicarbonate of soda and get the same discomfort, but from alkalosis.

Everybody is fruitarian by nature. To say that we require an alkaline end-product diet, but cant handle alkalis is contradictory. Eating no more than 20% acid-forming products does not create any major problem. Fruits and vegetables are, for practical purposes, alkaline in metabolic end-products. Most nuts and grains are acid-forming. Legumes are acid-forming unless sprouted on eaten in the fresh green state. Conventionally cooked foods, even if of normally alkaline-forming vegetables, become acid-forming. Conservatively cooked alkaline-forming foods remain alkaline in end-products. All animal products are acid-forming, including milk, except blood which is alkaline and butter which is neutral.

4. Myth: Fruits have too much sugar


Truth: First, about 90% of our nutrient requirements aside from water are for monosaccharides (simple sugars are glucose, fructose, glycerose and galactose) for energy. Until you´ve met this need, it is ridiculous to cry "too much sugar". Sugar in fruits come to us predigested, hence it cant be beyond our digestive capacity, though it may go down the intestinal tube if ingested beyond absorptive capacity which, too, is unlikely because of the satiety factor which limits fruit-eating to actual replenishment needs.

Some say, that fruit sugar are absorbed "too fast", but they dont present nearly the same problem with their fructose content as digested starches which are all glucose. If we eat "too much sugar", that is, caloric values exceeding our needs, then obviously we´ve overeaten. In the case of sugar, the surplus is either stored as fats or harmlessly excreted.

Lets look starches, often called complex carbohydrates. These must be heated to be broken down from long chain polysaccharides or starch. Heating dextrinizes starches. However, because there are no immediate sugars to absorb for appetite control, overeating of dextrinized starches is easy to come.

As to excess sugars, we are more likely to get it from starches on which we are more likely to overeat than from fruits which quickly satisfy our appetite.  In the case of heated starches, unless when heated at very low temperature for an extended period of time, our fungal and bacterial flora can readily ferment it, thus intoxicating us to some extent. Uncooked sugars are not fermentable until they been oxidized, a process unlikely to happen with these quickly absorbed foods unless other factors delay their absorption.

5. Myth: Fruits, especially dried fruits, ruin the teeth


Truth: Why is it commonly believed that our "sweet tooth" was installed by nature only to get us onto trouble? To give this charge credence we must necessarily regard Dr. Alan Walker, the noted John Hopkins University anthropologist, as mistaken (see this article). some are quick to reason that our forebears did not eat fruits exclusively, as he says for, had they, they couldnt possibly have had any teeth left to become fossilized. And, equally so, it was devilish of God to make us fruitarians, place us in an orchard called the Garden of Eden, and command us to eat only fruits (Den. 1: 29-30) and they leave us wide open to tooth decay by those very foods.

Dentists have long had cautions about sugar eating because it causes tooth decay. Most will not admit that the teeth are mostly sabotaged from the inside rather than the outside. But let us look at the nonsugar eating Eskimos who did and still do, for the most part, eat only fats and proteins. Their intake is about 200 grams of fat daily and about an equal amount of protein, all in raw state as they do not cook. Yet the average Eskimo has lost all of his or her teeth by the age of 30! This is self-evidence that heavy acid-forming diet sabotages tooth integrity. Of course it does likewise with their bones, for they have widespread osteoporosis. In their far north habitat a 40-year-old is into old age!

I have asked dentists about this and they categorically deny that the body will rob calcium and other minerals from teeth though they readily admit that the body will rob alkaline minerals  from bones to maintain chemical homeostasis. I have also asked about the claim that sugars cause tooth decay as it involves fruit sugars, especially of dried fruit. I am still waiting for substantive proof that they do.

6. Myth: Excess sugars in fruit turn to tryclycerides and cause overweight


Truth: That is some charge to make against fruitarians who are in no ways fat! Theres whole country of fruit-eaters in the jungles of Nicaragua called the Mosquito Indians. Are there any fatties or giants among them? From pictures ive seen, there´s nary a one. The same goes for chimpanzees who habitually overeat on fruit when available (as much as 40 bananas per creature according to Jane Goodall). Personally, i was grossly overweight until i undertook the fruitarian diet. Now im normal weight and have been for more than 24 years that ive been primarily fruitarian.

Fitness is a feast or famine response of the body to distress which threatens the body. This survival mechanism causes abnormal weight gain in anticipation of possible famine. As fruits never intoxicate and distress the body as conventional fare does, the response does not, in fact, occur in a fruit diet. Ive seen obese persons undertake fruitarian diet and eat double what they should, yet lose weight reliably! Fats are gained on conventional diets and lost on fruit diets!

7. Myth: Today´s fruits are developed by plant breeders to be too sweet and are nutritionally inferior by comparison with fruits in their ancient natural setting


Truth: I know this charge to be without relevant substantiveness on two counts:
1. Those making the statements do not have comparison data about fruits of yore even there are still lots of wild fruits to be had, and...
2. Comparison data about todays fruits reflect them to be nutritionally adequate even if they are not as nutritious as their forerunners were in nature.
Yes, fruits are continually being hybridizeds and bred as new strains and varieties. And while flavour and sweetness are striven for in the development of new varieties and strains, nutritionally they are about the same - some are indeed inferior on the natural counterpart but some are more nutritious also! Further, with todays knowledge of growing super nutritious fruits with mineralization techniques, especially trace minerals from the sea often given as foliar sprays, theres no reason that todays fruits cant be equal to or superior to the natural product of yesteryear.