Fruits
Most of us enjoy the taste of fruits and when they are in season – they are so damn delicious!
Who loves to have a handful of grapes? But then who goes for another bunch, and before you know it you’ve eaten nearly a bag of grapes.
With the sugar alert we are all reading and listening to of late, fruits come under the firing line of do we or do we not eat them!
Yes I was an avid fruit eater – having about 5 serves a day. I would have about 2 serves for breakfast, another piece mid morning, maybe one in the arvo and definitely a bowl of berries after dinner or in a protein smoothie.
I always had the “I need fruit for fibre” attitude and I didn’t want to give it up.
Now that my diet evolves more and more each year, I understand the nutrient dense foods, the right foods for my body and also the foods I need to help get through the day.
I look back and think about when I ate a lot of fruit, and yes I was always hungry, so to think I was doing the right thing I would eat another piece of fruit because that was healthy wasn’t it??
“You must realise all fruits are not created equally. Some fruits such as berries and citrus (like oranges and grapefruit) contain healthier ratios of nutrients to sugar then common fruits such as apples, bananas, and grapes.
Stick to having fresh or frozen berries about one-two serves a day to keep your sugar intake low.
You can do without fruits, there is no biological reason to eat them as long as you are consuming enough non- starchy vegetables such as leafy greens. There’s nothing essential in fruits that we cannot get, and with a lot less sugar, from non-starchy vegetables.
Ten servings of non-starchy vegetables will keep you healthier and slimmer than ten servings of fruits a day. The sugar content in fruit is so much higher – in fact grapes (that you ate by the bunch) has nineteen times more sugar than spinach.”
Jonathon Bailor “The calorie Myth”
Now my diet only includes mixed berries – mainly blueberries. Yes I miss other fruits, but it’s not to say I cannot have them, it’s just that I limit these as much as I can – If I’m out and about in social situations I will have some.
If you are hungry and want snacks throughout the day, the best snacks you can have are snacks that contain good fats (studies prove that these will sustain your hunger for a lot longer) you can have nuts, avocado and cheese, guacamole with vegetable sticks such as celery or cucumber sticks.
If you add sea salt to these snacks this will enhance the flavour and believe it or not will make them taste a lot sweeter.
I know there is so much information out there, but due to the amount of research published each week about the affects of sugar and the amount of sugar in our diets, each little bit counts. As you know our ancestors only at fruit that was in season, now we eat it all year around just about, so how our fruits are grown is very different as well.
Sometimes it’s just good to be mindful, and think of your overall health, not just weight loss.
You can’t go wrong with berries and to even have a wonderful treat have berries and heavy whipping cream – this topped with some crushed nuts would be a perfect snack, and would keep you satisfied longer than just a bunch of grapes!
