If we had a dollar for the number of times people asked if we ate fruit, we’d be billionaires!
So yes, while fruit contains fructose – which we avoid – it is still a fresh, whole food after all, which means that it also contains huge amounts of fibre and nutrients which we need in our diets. But, we’re very particular about what fruit we eat and how we eat it.
How we eat fruit…
We always eat fruit in its whole form – this means a whole apple, not apple juice – as you are getting the best part of the fruit in one little package, just as nature intended! Otherwise, opt for eating fruit as part of a meal, along with fats and protein – like cheese and nuts – or whizzed up along with loads of veg in a green smoothie.
Eating fruit that is in season is also really important – do we really need to be noshing on a fig when it’s out of season? The answer is no. Sticking to 1–2 pieces of low-fructose fruit a day is also key – a bit less if the fruit is higher in fructose.
The fruit we eat the most of…
Low-fructose fruit such as kiwi, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, cranberries, avocado and passionfruit are the best fresh fruits to be noshing on a daily basis. And, these are the ones we include in our smoothies and on our cheese boards – no raisins here!
Fruits like peaches, plums, mandarins and apples fall under our “eat less” category, while grapes, cherries, mangos and bananas are fruits we eat sparingly. Check out our Fruit Pyramid for more information.
We only cut out fruit for four weeks during our 8-Week Program!
And this is done in order to give your body a rest from sweet tasting food, so your taste buds have the opportunity to reset and recalibrate. But rest assured, we also up the amount of veggies and healthy fats during this time so you won’t go hungry – and sweetness is reintroduced in week six.
What fruit we avoid…
We steer clear of anything that isn’t whole, fresh fruit – this includes dried fruit, fruit juice and fruit pastes. Dried fruit is particularly nasty as the process to dry it removes all of the water, leaving the sugar seriously concentrated. But, as if that wasn’t bad enough, many dried fruits are often coated in sugar too – talk about a sugar bomb! If you don’t believe us, take cranberries as an example. 150g of fresh cranberries contain about 6g of fructose, but 150g worth of dried cranberries contain about 95g of sugar. Crazy, right?!
Meanwhile, the issue with juice is that all of the pulp (AKA fibre) is removed during the juicing process so all you’re left with is liquid sugar. So, while you couldn’t really eat 5 oranges in one sitting, it’s certainly easy to drink the juice of five oranges in one go! The result? Your liver is flooded with fructose. Not ideal.
But, what’s wrong with naturally-occurring sugars?
Natural or not, sugar is sugar and fructose (whether it’s found in fruit or in processed foods) can overload your liver – which means your liver struggles to focus on anything else as it’s too busy turning fructose into other molecules. This “dumpage” on the liver can then cause fat storage, as your liver stores any excess fructose it can’t break down as fat.
On our 8-Week Program you’ll find out everything you need to know about fruit so why not jump on board now?!
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