is too much fruit bad?

sam · Guest

Earlier this morning I had a bowl of shredded wheats with a banana. A little while after i cut open a watermelon and ended up eating practically a whole half! Then I started thinking, is this okay for my diet? Is too much fruit bad? I hear too much of anything seems to be bad.... Is natural sugar (like in fruit) as bad a "man-made" sugar?

NaturalFitness · Guest

Hi Sam, natural sugar(fructose) found in fruits still turns to glucose once ingested although its usually absorbed at a slower pace than man made sugar( lower on the glycemic index ) but in high amounts it can still trigger a rapid rise in blood sugar levels. That isn't such a good thing if you are trying to lose bodyfat, not to mention what it can do to your energy levels.

Fruits however should be part a balanced diet so you still need to eat them. However you should balance your meals so that they have a good amount of protein, carbs and some fats, mostly in the forms of essential fatty acids. This should keep your blood sugar levels in check.

NaturalFitness

riya · Joined: 19 May 2008 Posts: 3

Yah, every thing have a limit. Over limit is a bad for health.Fruits are good for health but over limit bad for health. fruits have a natural sugar.This sugar is a bad for diabetics persons,Because blood sugar is going to rise quickly.

Fyrecracker · Joined: 17 May 2007 Posts: 20 Location: Los Angeles,CA

Plus if you eat too much at one time....you might start to feel sick. Just like water is good for you, but too much will make you feel sick as well.

Boss · Joined: 27 Mar 2008 Posts: 96 Location: The end of a wire.

The person saying Fruit Sugars are bad for Diabetics is not being wholely truthful.

Fructose interacts with the Liver, however Fruit has quite a few things including in some cases Antioxidents, and some have Vit C as another example. They also are quite good sources of Fibre.

A lot of Fruits digest in around 30 minutes, as they have almost no Fat and no Protein.

The fact is any Sugars or Carbs can be bad for Diabetics, especially in big amounts.

If you ate something like a White Rice roughly GI 87, and had about 30 grams of Rice Carbs, your Glycemic Load would be 26.1.

This is considered high, 20+, and represents a 27% Bloodsugar increase.

Fruit is perfectly acceptable for Diabetics to eat. The only issues you might get, apart from obvious digestive ones from too much , (though too much of any food could cause intestinal problems / discomfort), is that some Fructose converts to Fat in the Liver.

The amount of conversion would probably depend on what the person was doing, I.E. a Banana at work, as opposed to a Banana before a workout, where you then use more energy than you would at work.

The rest of the Fructose would convert to energy.

The only other issues with Fruit, is some Fruit doesn't digest that well with other foods, except for Tomatos, that are more tolerant.

Some Fruits can possibly get trapped in the stomach, and combine poorly, leaving you with inadequate Fruit digestion. This might have something to do with a Fructase enzyme, interacting with other enzymes in a less than beneficial manner, like Pepsin, a Protein digesting Enzyme, or Ptyalin, a starch digesting Enzyme, as examples, though I am not 100% certain of this.

Also there's a possibility that Citrus Fruits don't work too well with Cereals for example, (from what I have ascertained in the past), and may cause Hyperacidity, which could be linked to Acid Reflux, (Heartburn trigger), or digestive issues for the food if it becomes Hyperacidic, and digests poorly in either the Duodenum and / or Intestines, the two primary digestive tracts below the Stomach.

Yes, Simple Sugars can make Bloodsugar rise quickly, but that doesn't necessarily represent a bad thing, unless the rise might be very high, as in the Rice equation, and if the person was going into a Hypoglycemic state, then Fruit would be beneficial, as the Bloodsugar would need restoring to a healthier level quickly, and simple Carbs could be beneficial in that instance, (Fruit included), or another good way to get fast Carbs, in the intial stages of a Hypo, would be a piece of Whole-grain Bread, with Honey.

Honey would be simple, causing a good Bloodsugar rise, and the Whole-grain Carbs, (Fiberous ones), would help to more slowly bring the Bloodsugar back to a better state, mostly after the Honey had done what was wanted.

Too much Water can also kill you. As in the case of an American radio show, where excessive Water consumption, as some kind of "who can drink the most Water for money" game, backfired killing one participant.

Likelihood is the Stomach lining expanded too much and burst, but I can't say, as I never heard about any Post Mortem evidence, that's if any was released into the mainstream, again I don't know.

JP · Guest

You know that old saying, "too much of a good thing is not a good thing"? Well it's true of food too. There are no miracle foods. Eating too much of any one food, means you only get the nutrients available in that one type of food, or food group, and therefore will lack the nutrients available in other foods. There is little protein in fruit for example, and no fibre in meat. You need to eat some of all natural foods to get a good balance of nutrients.

When it comes to fruit, some fruits are nutritionally better than others, as is true for most food groups. A watermelon for example, contains quite a few calories but it doesn't seem that way when you eat it. Half a watermelon, depending on the size, could be 700 or more calories, mostly from natural sugar, with little fibre to slow absorption. On a per calorie basis, apples have twice the fibre of watermelon and I think you'd have to consume about 10 medium sized apples to get the same number of calories, so I'd say apples are more filling than watermelon.

Variety is the key...