Are fruits important in a healthy diet? page

[whatsonthemenu]

Fresh fruit was a rarity in my working poor household, so I never acquired a strong liking of any fruit other than apples, watermelon, and the occasional tangerine. I have been eating a variety of temperate fruits in season to benefit from their antioxidant content. However, I understand that vegetables offer the same antioxidant power without the sugar. Fruits are also significantly more expensive than vegetables. I'd like to scratch fruits off my weekly farmers' market shopping list until apples come into season. Is this healthy? Between the veggies and the six cups of decaf and herbal teas, I ought to be getting enough antioxidants. Are there any important nutrients that I might miss or be deficient in if I quit eating fruit?

[OnTheBayou]

Were the Inuit missing fruit in the old days?


Did Grok, nine months of the year?


Or right here in America until the advent of inexpensive transportation? (Overlooking those hideous canned fruits in heavy syrup.)


Not eating beans on this PB thing is easy compared to not eating, OK, minimally eaing all this wonderful in season fruit!

[Trinkwasser]

I was never that fond of fruits compared to vegetables, so didn't miss them much when I discovered the dreadful things they did to my blood glucose.


Mind you I DO love my strawberries, and blueberries, but I mostly only eat them when in season, plus the occasional half apple.


IMO you can get a lot more bang per buck from vegetables even if you don't have such a specific reason to avoid fruits, just keep mixing up the colours for the different bioflavinoids

[OnTheBayou]

TW, there is NO vegetable that can come close to oral satisfaction compared to a perfect peach, as I've been able to get recently. Or cantaloupe. Or watermelon. The good news is that they are pretty low glycemic index, not much insulin spiking going on.

[Tara tootie]

OTB- you should check out my kickbutt peach compote I just made. The peaches def have me locked in all summer. http://tarablogsabouteverything.blogspot.com/


TW- If you dont like em, you dont like em. As long as you get proper vitamins and minerals I should think youll be okay. I mean unless thee is some mystery factor in fruit that is yet to be discovered. I think the problem comes when people eat ho-hos instead of an apple.

[OnTheBayou]

TT, that's a very well put together page! And I love that quote!


Most of the time, grocery store peach are hard as bricks. In Colorado, in season though, the peaches grown on the Western Slope would come in nice and ripe, perfect! Here in FL at this time Publix has their "Premium" peaches from north FL and elsewhere and they are as good as peaches can get!


I'll take TW's share! Oh, wait, my diet....

[whatsonthemenu]

Thanks for the responses, everyone. Colorful fruit looks so appealing I couldn't resist picking up a pint of raspberries (low sugar, high fiber) and a few of the season's first apricots at the farmers' market today.

[Trinkwasser]

(grins) you're welcome, I'll have your spare salad and veggies. Tonight, sausages (real ones from the butcher) with runner beans and big giant mushrooms followed by some strawberries washed down with a fine Chilean Shiraz, and tomorrow maybe some blueberries with creamed goat cheese, they'll go towards my Five Colours A Day without my BG freaking out. Next week maybe some cherries.


Despite what I have been told I'm not entirely fruitless