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I received an email this week promoting the idea that you should only eat your fruits on an empty stomach. The email contained several myths and misinformation that I'd like to correct.
- Statement #1: If you eat fruit after other foods, the other foods prevent it from going to the intestines. FALSE. The other foods in the stomach do not prevent the nutrients in the fruit from reaching the intestines or prevent them from being absorbed. If the other food you ate with the fruit is high in fiber, fat or protein, the fiber, fat and protein will slow the absorption of the fruit sugars into the blood stream. For most people, especially those with diabetes and insulin resitance, this is actually a good thing. Fiber and protein, in particular reduce the glycemic effect of high glycemic fruits such as bananas and strawberries.
- Statement #2: When fruit comes in contact with food and digestive juices, the entire mass of food begins to spoil. FALSE. Not only is this not true, but it's not even logical. If your food spoiled within your body every time you ate fruit, you'd be sick, really sick (more than just a little indigestion) all the time. The body is not designed this way and there is nothing in fruit that could react with other foods to cause the food to spoil.
- Statement #3: When fruit mixes with other food in the stomach/intestines, it produces gas in the system and you bloat." FALSE. Gas is actually created by the bacteria in the stomach and intestines. The bacteria break down fiber and other food components that aren’t digested from our diets and use it for energy. The by-product of this process for the bacteria is gas. Some types of bacteria produce more gas than others and if your body doesn't produce enough of the right enzymes to digest your foods, you may experience more gas. For example, someone who is lactose intolerant will experience gas, bloating and stomach upset when they eat dairy because his/her body doesn't produce enough of the enzyme (lactase) to break down the milk sugar, lactose. The lactose is then used by the bacteria, espcially the "bad" bacteria, and creates the unpleasant symptoms of gas & bloating.
- Statement #4: There is no such thing as acidic fruits. TRUE (generally speaking anyway). The pH of a food in terms of following an alkaline diet program is not dependent on the pH of the food in the glass or on the plate. It's based on how the body metabolizes the food. Most fruits and vegetables create alkaline metabolites in the body, not acidic metabolites.
- Statement #5: Don't drink juice that has been heated or fruit that has been cooked because cooking destroys all the vitamins. FALSE. Cooking can destroy some nutrients and many processed and cooked foods are lower in some nutrients. However, cooking can release and raise the level of other nutrients. For example, lycopene levels are higher in tomato sauce than in raw tomatoes.
- Statement #6: Eating whole fruit is better for you than drinking the juice. TRUE. Whole fruit also contains fiber and nutrients that may not be contained in the juice portion of the fruit.
Regardless of whether you eat your fruits on an empty stomach, with other food, cooked, juiced or raw, including fruits and vegetables in your diet is a good thing. Be sure to include at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables each day from a variety of sources and colors. Choose fruits that are high in fiber and rich in antioxidants. Eat your fruits and vegetables as fresh as possible for maximum nutrient content.
For more information on the health benefits of antioxidants, fruits and vegetables, read:
Comments
Great article! My wife forwarded it to me. We saw that email and since I'm a big fruit eater we decided it wouldn't hurt to just eat fruit alone and then other food later. I think #4 is arguable because of course fruits are acidic - lemons can eat away the enamel on your teeth! But citric acid is not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps you can do a whole seperate article on that.
Thanks for this great information! I have heard about eating fruit on an empty stomach and just received another email now so I decided to find out if that is true or not. Thanks again for giving me the truth.
What is your source from ?? What makes you the expert? I have heard eating Fruit ON AN EMPTY STOMACH is way more beneficial according to many sources. I am going to eat my fruit on an empty stomach!
EXACTLY....Doctors proclaim eating fruits on an empty stomach is more beneficial. I TOO shall continue this practice!!
How do you eat fruits on an empty stomach? How will I know when my stomach is empty?
I am asking because I do number 2 once a week (it's been like this all my life), so I wouldn't really know when I have an empty stomach!
Please advise.
I would say a growling stomach would indicate the desire for needed nourishment. THAT is when I eat MY fruit
I would say all of your statement is FALSE!!! Where did you study? Where did you get your experience from?
How can you say cooking doesn't destroy vitamins??? OMG!
lol I found that the fact this guy even had to write this post funny....... how can you possible argue that eating fruit on an empty stomach is more beneficial? oh an btw, cooking does not destroy vitamins
Vitamins are not a chemical group in terms of their chemical structure, they’re all different, so talking about the destruction of their chemical structure as a group is wrong. We would have to talk about each one separately.
That being said, enzymes are always proteins. Enzymes are very helpful in the absorption and assimilation of foods at the duodenum.
Most enzymes work by virtue of their physical shape matching, precluding or letting in other substances that will then be able (or not) to attach to them and accelerate the assimilation process. That happens (or does not happen) at the tertiary level structure (weak physical "links" that hold the protein that makes up the enzyme in a certain "twisted" position – called steric structure). Much like what makes curly hair curly. You can easily destroy the curliness without destroying the hair – it’s called a “perm” and they use chemicals to obtain it. You still have the hair and its chemical composition has not changed at the primary level. The same concatenation of amino acids makes up your hair now, after the perm. Now if the attachment of this enzyme depended on its "curliness", not its composition, you would be destroying the functionality by straightening it. An easier to see example is what happens to egg-white when you cook it. It was clear and transparent before and white after. It was liquid before and it adopts a shape after cooking that cannot be changed anymore without breaking it. This processes it absolutely irreversible, by the way. These are a couple of examples of tertiary protein structure changes.
Fruits contain enzymes that help us utilize their nutrients. The tertiary shape and positioning of these enzymes' physical structures, like egg-white or a perm, can be easily altered - thereby destroying their enzymatic capabilities and transforming them in nothing but another protein, (a mere chain of amino acids). Hydrochloric acid from the stomach’s acid digestion will destroy the week links that sustain the tertiary shape of most enzymes found in fruits, spoiling their enzymatic capabilities. (Maybe that's why we've evolved to pass them right through to the small intestines. This is the difference between your fresh-squeezed orange and your 100% pure Tropicana… Yes. It is true, they didn’t add any preservatives to the bottled juice, they only destroyed their enzymes in the heating process, but I digress.
So how does the popular lore call all these million words I just wrote? They say that “vitamins rot in the stomach” or that “vitamins break with cooking”. Is this exactly true? No. Does that make the opposite true. Not either. The answer is above. The simple answer is the same as it is with most things we want to really understand. You should answer the question to most people as follows: “It’s more complicated than your attention span will allow, but yes, it does make a difference”. Hopefully they didn’t lose you after “but”. This should not become a “political” believer vs. non-believer debate or a credentials exchange anymore than military power should never be the judge to who is right. It should not depend on who says it either. This is science folks!
I lost 40 pounds myself dedicating my mornings to fruit and only fruit. (I do indulge in coffee after I let the fruit get out of the way). I have kept it off for two years now. Well I also did other things to lose the weight so this is no magic formula. But the fruit part works! Cheers! Gabe.
I am a diabetic and I have been testing my blood before and after each meal for the last month and have found that eating fruit after my meals will spike my blood sugar, but if I eat the fruit first and then my meal my blood sugar does not spike but stays in normal range.
There's a lot of gullible people out there who will believe anything in an e-mail forward.
Check out this article by a medical doctor. The info. is totally opposite of what this writer reported about fruit.
What is the correct way of eating fruits?
IT MEANS NOT EATING FRUITS AFTER YOUR MEALS! * FRUITS SHOULD BE EATEN ON AN EMPTY STOMACH.
If you eat fruit like that, it will play a major role to detoxify your system, supplying you with a great deal of energy for weight loss and other life activities.
FRUIT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FOOD. Let's say you eat two slices of bread and then a slice of fruit. The slice of fruit is ready to go straight through the stomach into the intestines, but it is prevented from doing so.
In the meantime the whole meal rots and ferments and turns to acid. The minute the fruit comes into contact with the food in the stomach and digestive juices, the entire mass of food begins to spoil... so eat fruit on an empty stomach.
Second part of fruit article -There is no such thing as some fruits, like orange and lemon are acidic, because all fruits become alkaline in our body, according to Dr. Herbert Shelton who did research on this matter. If you have mastered the correct way of eating fruits, you have the Secret of beauty, longevity, health, energy, happiness and normal weight.
When you need to drink fruit juice - drink only fresh fruit juice, NOT from the cans. Don't even drink juice that has been heated up. Don't eat cooked fruits because you don't get the nutrients at all. You only get to taste. Cooking destroys all the vitamins.
But eating a whole fruit is better than drinking the juice. If you should drink the juice, drink it mouthful by mouthful slowly, because you must let it mix with your saliva before swallowing it. You can go on a 3-day fruit fast to cleanse your body. Just eat fruits and drink fruit juice throughout the 3 days.
To Jillian Bullock: your "article" is an email that has been circulating since 2001 taken from the 1998 writings of a chef and culinary writer--not a doctor. Recent versions of this email cite the author as Dr. Oz but that clearly is not the case. This author is dispelling the myths contained in that email (see the first sentence). If you don't believe the author, check the snopes or quackwatch websites.
WoW, Still so many gullible people getting that email and like so many other emails with false information, too many people take it for fact before checking it out...."But I read it in an email,it must be true!" Wake up you naive ones....LOL.
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE BEFORE POSTING, then you won't look like such a fool. She is a Certified Clinical Nutritionist, most doctors just push meds and have very little nutritional training.
this is so false.
All I can say is day 3 & I have been eliminateing waste. I have been eating fruit from breakfast up until noon.My digestive tract is much better. That is all I need. The weight is not even a factor yet..
When we eat fruit and fruit juice then it must be fresh. Nothing cooked, canned or processed in any way. Nothing pasteurized. Fruits such as bananas, raisins, dates and all dried fruits are more concentrated and will stay in our stomach longer than the watery fruits, so we will feel full longer. It is essential, however, to not eat fruit dried with chemicals such as sulfur nitrite. Eat only naturally dried fruit. We should eat some fruit every day, and in the morning is when we can be sure there is nothing else in the stomach that will cause fruit to spoil.
http://www.healthandsoul.com/right-way-of-eating-fruits-and-healthy-ways...
Thank u for the article. The information you have provided is very similar to my own research on the matter. I hope it helps to educate those out there that are suseptable to misleading information and do not do their own research using trustworthy sources. So many places simply repeated the same false and misleading chain email. On a side note. It would be nice to see the sources of your information...cheers!
For those that question the authors credentials and where she gets her information from, here you go...
Jennifer Ferniza owns 2 health businesses, has a MS from ASU, is a CCN with 15 yrs experience in health & wellness, and is an experienced speaker & author. She loves living in Phoenix & is passionate about sharing her health knowledge with her family & community.
The above statement intended to say this site http://www.kimknightcoaching.com/life-coach.php/5/183 has wrong info
My stomach is always heavy when am not taking any food please I won’t to ask why It brings this source of heavy stomach ......
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