You’re Eating Fruits The Wrong Way
How Not to Eat Fruits for Avoiding Negative Impact From it
As the awareness around body, fitness and diet is growing every food item is coming under scrutiny. People want to keep themselves fit and hence, want to include healthy items in their diet as much as possible. In these times of health and fitness awareness, people have started including beans, raw vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and water in their diet.
But the thing is that everything that can be beneficial for health can also have an adverse effect if you don’t take it at the right time, and in the right quantity.
Just like Yoga. Yoga is said to be highly beneficial and one-stop solution for all physical, mental and spiritual problems. But if the inhalation and exhalation process is not right, the breath control is not right or if the posture is not right, then it can cause harm rather than good. That’s why it is advised to learn and practice yoga from a qualified teacher.
Similarly, the superfoods, if taken in excess quantities or at the wrong time or by the person who should not be taking it due to some medical condition can backfire too. This is applicable to fruits, veggies and water too. Consuming them in the wrong way, at the wrong time, can harm your health.
You should know, what to eat when to eat and how much to eat if you really wanna keep yourself healthy. Else, the equilibrium in your body would be disturbed and you would end up becoming sick.
In this blog, we would discuss the points one should keep in mind while eating fruits. We would write about raw veggies and water consumption too in upcoming blogs.
People have started consuming fruits at any time, at any place, while walking, while talking because they are rich sources of fibre, vitamins and minerals. Because they have a feeling it is going to them healthier. Well, not if you take it as per your whims.
Let’s see what all you need to keep in mind while consuming fruits:
1. Consume Local and Seasonal Fruits
Many of us buy exotic foreign fruits after reading health blogs from the USA and Europe, thinking it would provide them with all the necessary vitamins and minerals much faster and in better quantities. First of all the thing is that the climate and living conditions in the US and Europe are much different. Their health blogs more often than not are more relevant and contextual to the people living in those geographical regions.
We have evolved with a certain climate and eating habits. And hence, it is best if we eat locally produced seasonal fruits only. Eating fruits when it is not their season can backfire because it has been raised forcefully against natural conditions using various chemicals. Hence, try to find out the local and seasonal fruits from that area and try to buy from local vendors. You would help the local economy and your health too. Take that effort before purchasing fruits from that market.
2. Juice Doesn’t Mean Fruit
There is another most prevalent fad around the fruit is fruit juices. A lot of people take refuge in fruit juices for weight loss and for proper nutrition. Mate, sorry to break it to you but juice is associated with higher calories intake. If you’re consuming an orange juice made from 4 oranges, you’re consuming sugar of all 4 oranges and losing all the dietary fibre that’s good for your health, digestive system and smooth bowl movements.
Also, consuming vitamins and minerals in excess at one go is also not good because excess water-soluble vitamins and minerals are not absorbed by the body rather they are excreted out from the body. The juice would suddenly spike the sugar in your body in absence of dietary fibre of the fruit that has been thrown into the dustbin.
Another point is that excess heat generated in the mixer also destroys some of the heat sensitives vitamins and minerals in the juice. If you really wanna lose weight then the fruit juice is not recommended unless you’re doing juice fasting and not having anything other than juices and controlling your calorie intake. But losing weight with a conventional diet while having 2 glasses of juices is just not gonna happen. Unless you work really really hard to burn all the calories that you’re consuming.
Hence, it is advised to eat whole fruits instead of juices. People who can’t eat fruits due to any reason can go for juices from low glycemic fruits and sip the juice slowly. Eating fast and gulping drinks down the throat hinders the digestive process. And preserved, and packaged fruit juices from any brand are a big NO-NO. If you can please eat a seasonal, locally available whole fruit.
3. No-No to Pre Cut and Stored Fruits
Our busy lifestyles and schedules don’t let us even cook our own food and eat it in peace. And hence, a lot of people (or their household help) cut the fruits night before or in the morning so that they can eat in the afternoon or later. People at times eat fruits or other food items while walking, talking or doing both. While it is understandable that you’re busy but it is not advised that due to your hectic schedule you eat pre-cut fruits hours after cutting it.
The fruits should be consumed within minutes after cutting it. The fruits start losing their nutrients and the alkaline fruits state becoming acidic too. The peel of fruits protects the pulp from oxygen, light and heat but when cut the relatively vulnerable pulp becomes exposed to all three of them. The antioxidants inside the fruits start reacting with oxygen. The antioxidants are lost and many nutrients too.
Cutting the fruit and exposing it also spikes the respiration rate. This breaks the sugar inside the fruits and carbon dioxide is released causing faster spoilage, change in the taste and texture of the produce. Although, refrigeration lowers the respiration rate still it is recommended that you carry whole fruits along, wash them and eat them. For the fruits with edible peels, it is advised that you don’t peel off the fruit and eat it whole because the peel also contains a wide variety of nutrients.
4. Don’t Combine Milk With Fruits
Combining fruits to make all kinds of fancy shakes is in fashion. Many people consider them to be healthy drinks.
But the reality is quite different. Milk is something that should not be mixed with fruits else it can create various reactions in the body. When milk is mixed with sour unripened fruits like unripe mango etc or with citrus fruits like Oranges then the milk starts curdling. Like, what happens when you add a few drops of lemon to the milk. The milk becomes harder to digest after the curdling process. And hence, berries, citrus fruits and unripe fruits should never be mixed with milk. Banana should not be mixed with milk, because its post digestion effect is highly acidic.
Mixing milk with fruit juices will separate the milk and agglutinate, making it hard to absorb and digest.
Milk can be combined with some ripe and sweet fruits like Mango, dates, fig, and raisins. And mostly if you’re not aware of the effect just avoid taking milk and fruits together. Try to keep a gap of a couple of hours between having milk and fruits. Else, both seemingly nutritious foods would backfire making you sick.
5. Mixing Fruits With Main Meals
Mixing fruits or for that matter, anything with main meals is not a good idea. It is advised to eat fruits a hour before the meal or a couple of hours after the meal, once the food in the stomach has exited from the stomach.
Mixing fruits with main meals interfere with the digestion process. The nutrients would not be absorbed properly. Fruits are itself is a meal and hence should never be combined with the main meal. Especially, if you have any kind of digestive problem like acidity etc then you should not mix meals and fruits.
It is best to eat fruits first thing in the morning after a glass of water, between breakfast and lunch, and in the evening as snacks. Having fruits on an empty stomach detoxifies our system, supplies us with a great deal of energy.
Eating a few pieces of fruits almost an hour before the meal may help control overeating during lunch and the fibre in fruits would help smooth the digestion process.
6. Don’t Eat Fruits At Night
It is advised to avoid anything 2–3 hours before sleeping as it interferes with the digestive system. It is equally true for fruits as well.
Eating fruits before going to bed has high chances of interfering with sleep due to the release of a lot of sugar, causing a spike in energy when the body should be preparing to rest.
Our ability to absorb and assimilate nutrients is relatively lesser at night. Also, eating fruits at night might cause symptoms related to acidity. It is better to eat fruits as an evening snack and not later than that. Unless you’re dying for hunger at midnight and all you have is fruits. Then, by all means, have them.
But under normal circumstances, avoid eating immediately before sleeping, keep a gap of at least 2–3 hours. And try not to consume after evening.
If you keep these things in mind while consuming fruits, you’re likely to benefit much faster, assimilate more nutrients and faster. You would not face digestion related issues like acidity, heartburn etc.
Being a little more aware and disciplined in your diet can do wonders with respect to your health. We would soon write on the right way of having water, and raw veggies too. The next blog would be on extracting various types of vegan milk.
Happy Healthy Eating to All. :)
