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 WEEKLY ARTICLE

                            The Scoop On Fruit 

We have a peachy keen menu for you this week, all the way from the creamy and delicious Broccoli Soup, to the rich and luscious Peach Chiffon Mousse.

 As I write these words a great song comes to mind.

You can listen to it below. 

Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: Fruit. How do we incorporate fruit properly into our life and into our diet? This is probably among one of the most frequently of asked questions here at Wholly Macro.

Lets try to clarify it a bit.

The naturally sweet quality of fruit makes it a wonderful alternative to refined sugar and artificially sweetened foods and desserts.

But that very same, delicious, naturally sweet quality also makes it very easy to overdo fruit consumption.

Here at Wholly Macro, we like to think of fruit as an ancillary food. It is NOT a main food group.

The main food groups are whole grains, proteins, and vegetables.

Please think of fruit as a decorative food, an accessory if you will.

When you are planning any meal, whether it is breakfast, lunch, or a main dinner course, you always have the option of using fruit within your meal.

Within is the key word here.

If you make a nice whole grain breakfast porridge and want to decorate it with fruit, or include fruit in a grain and bean salad at lunch or dinner, that is just fine, and much different than making a fruit smoothie and drinking only that smoothie for one of those meals.  

Even fruit desserts are seldom just fruit. They are usually traditionally combined with a protein (tofu, dairy) of some sort, and a crust (grain) of some sort.

Fruit alone, especially in large quantities, is a rather large dose of simple sugar. Yes, it is fruit sugar, it is natural, and it is full of vitamins and antioxidants (but probably not one's that you can't also obtain from other foods), but, never the less, to your pancreas, it is simply sugar.

Quick True Story:

We have a friend who used to come here prior to our historic monthly macrobiotic group dinners and lectures. Do you all remember those?

She would always bring an apple with her, and would eat it in the car on the way to the dinner.

We observed that her moods would swing wildly, and not always pleasantly, during the drive to the restaurant.

What was happening, was that she had not eaten since lunchtime, she was hungry, and her blood sugar was running low (due to the hunger). All perfectly normal and understandable.

Her snack of choice though was inappropriate.

Snacking on a piece of fruit when hungry and low on blood sugar is like eating a candy bar.

Your body experiences a huge surge in blood sugar, you feel all great and perky for a few minutes, and then your blood sugar inevitably crashes. Grouchiness and moodiness usually follows. Maybe some of you can relate?

A much better choice when running on empty would be to choose a whole grain snack such as leftover rice or leftover breakfast porridge (with fruit in it). Even a cracked grain snack such as crackers with   almond butter and jam would work. Any complex carb will work, with or without the fruit and protein.

Once our friend understood this concept and stopped snacking on apples, things on the drive were so much better for us all, and especially for her poor pancreas / blood sugar levels!

While on this train of thought, can you see that having fruit for breakfast is not your best choice??

When arising, the food that you eat to start your day sets the tone of your day.

You want to eat kind, gentle, stabilizing and energizing foods for breakfast, not foods that shoot your blood sugar way up on a false high, only to have it crash down all around you about mid-morning, and for the remainder of your day.

Once blood sugar levels rise or fall beyond normal, it takes about 24 hours for them to re-stabilize, and they will only do so if the proper foods are eaten at the proper times. Making the wrong food choices will perpetuate the problem.   

We really cringe when people tell us about the elaborate fruit smoothies that they prepare for themselves for breakfast, knowing full well what they are doing to their bodies (and minds).

Fruit is naturally cooling in nature.

You can observe that summer fruits such as melons, are much more fluid (juicy) than winter fruits such as apples.

Tropical fruits are even more fluid and cooling as they are designed, by nature, to be consumed in true tropical climates. South Florida is sub tropical, not truly tropical. So please, consume tropical fruits very moderately, and only if you are in good strong health.

Mother Nature is amazingly wise in the way that she designs things.

In the summer heat our bodies need to remain hydrated. Summer fruit is hydrating.

So fruit, especially the more cooling in nature summer fruits, can be used in greater quantities in summer, while winter fruits are more appropriate and well suited in smaller quantities, in the winter.

Fruit can actually be medicinal in nature, and can be used to remedy over stressed, over heated, and overly acidic and contracted conditions.

Great care must be taken in using fruit when a person is chronically weak, cold, or ill. In these cases, the intake of fruit can increase the cold, weak, or chronically ill condition.

Eating too much fruit, and eating it out of season is contraindicated.

Even in the summer, and even in the best of health, you should not eat more than a serving size of fruit that is equal to the approximate size of half an apple, per day.

The idea that fruit is good for you and the more of it the better is not in the best interest of your long-term health.  

A good approach is to decide what type of fruit you will eat on a given day, and to plan for those fruits as part of a meal, part of a dessert, and / or as part of a snack.

Be aware of your allotted fruit quota each day, and try not to exceed it, so that your body remains balanced, and you are able to enjoy fruit seasonally and moderately throughout your life.

A fruit dessert may, and usually does contain a large amount of fruit. But that very dessert is meant to be eaten as a one - portion serving. When eating fruit based desserts, please consider a proper serving size as your fruit allotment for the day.

When eating fresh fruit, always eat it fully ripe. Under ripe fruit lacks the proper balance of enzymes that release it's valuable vitamins and antioxidants. Fully ripe fruit is also more alkalizing than under ripe fruit.

Never eat over ripe fruit. Over ripe fruit is beginning to ferment. And while fermentation is desired in certain foods (such as natural pickles), because of the high sugar content in fresh fruit, fermentation can encourage the growth of undesirable yeasts, funguses, and bacteria's. Completely remove overripe sections of a piece of fruit before consuming. If you can't get "clear boundaries", dispose of the entire piece of fruit rather than eat it!

What about dried fruit, canned fruit, fruit juice, and fruit jam?  

Dried fruit is actually higher in concentrated fruit sugar than is fresh fruit. But at the same time, it is much less fluid and much less cooling to the body than fresh fruit. This makes it a good choice for wintertime, and for people who are cold and weak. Dried fruit must really be eaten in moderation due to its high concentration of sugar, so we recommend that you use it IN your cooking or as a dessert (small portions!!), not as a snack.  

Canned Fruit? Only in a pinch. If fresh fruit is not available look for canned fruit that is unsweetened, or sweetened with fruit juice only. Better yet, assess why there is no fresh fruit available. Perhaps it is entirely inappropriate for the season and location in which you find yourself fruitless!

And last but far from least, fruit juice. Fruit Juice is a very concentrated form of fruit. Imagine how many apples or oranges it takes to make one glass of fruit juice. Six? Eight? Aren't you way over your daily allotment of fruit if you drink just one glass of fruit juice? Fruit juice taken in excess, (and even one glass is excessive) per the above calculations, can be very weakening. We don't even cook with fruit juice here at Wholly Macro. Many recipes call for fruit juice. Especially dessert recipes. But we always substitute water and a bit of fresh fruit, fruit jam, or brown rice syrup for the fruit juice in any given recipe. This cuts way down on the amount of concentrated fruit sugar consumed, and we find that the natural sweetness of the foods themselves are plenty sweet and flavorful without the addition of fruit juice.

Speaking of fruit jam, where does it fit in? Perhaps you can answer that by now. Fruit Jam is another concentrated form of fresh fruit. It is not quite as concentrated as dried fruit, and not quite as liquid, cooling, and weakening as fruit juice however. So we rather like using it in certain dishes. A very little goes a long way and adds a very pungent and full-bodied flavor to a recipe. Think orange marmalade for example.

One last category before we close is Cooked Fruit. Cooking fruit is a very nice way to receive the relaxing and calming benefits of fruit, and satisfy your sweet tooth, without receiving quite as much of the cooling and potentially weakening effects of the fruit.  

The texture, quality, and energy of fruit is dramatically altered with even the slightest of cooking.

So again, please notice that we will gradually be winding down our use of fruit within the Wholly Macro menus for the duration of the winter, and yes, well in advance of our little South Florida winter.

A trick of the trade: You must start preparing your body in advance of the season you find yourself in.

Sure, it is tempting to keep buying watermelon all fall, especially here in South Florida. But if we were to have a sudden cold snap, would your body be prepared to deal with it if it is in an extremely cooled down state because you have indulged in summer fruit well into the fall and winter? Or would you find yourself too chilled all winter to even enjoy the change in season.

Have a little respect for your kidneys if nothing else. They are the single organs most adversely affected by extreme cold.

They need to be warm and strong going into winter. And cooled down appropriately going into summer.

Fruit alone cannot accomplish this, but it can do harm if eaten inappropriately.

Consistent proper diet is the only way to keep your body fully balanced.

Be creative and aware when you incorporate fruit into your daily diet. It is a beautiful and colorful accessory.

Use it wisely.

And that our friends is the short version of Wholly Macro's Scoop On Fruit.

In The Best Of Health To You As Always.

Gayle and Jaime / Wholly Macro