Eating Fruit on
an Empty Stomach: Is it Dangerous?
An e-mail forward recently went around
through my circle of friends about eating fruit after meals. The subject line
sparked my curiosity immediately: "Never, Ever Eat Fruit Like
This..." Never eat fruit? This can't be serious, I thought. Fruit is one
of the most healthy foods imaginable. Ever health conscious, I was eager to
read what was inside. When I opened the e-mail I was bombarded with facts about
the human body, how food is processed, and why eating fruit on an empty stomach
can actually be dangerous.
Though the presentation of facts seemed legitimate,
I was skeptical. After all, I had never heard anything that even remotely
hinted at there being a "right" or "wrong" time to eat
fruit. Fruit is good for you! I set out not to prove the information's validity,
but rather the opposite - to prove it wrong. Surely fruit would be good for you
no matter what time of the day you ate it or whether your stomach was full or
not. After much research, what I found was shocking, and I wanted to share it
with everyone: fitness gurus or average joes so that we can all live a happier,
healthier life.
For most, the idea of consuming your two to three
daily servings of fruit involves downing a fruit smoothie on the go or popping
the top on a pre-made fruit cup. Some of the more diligent may even go to the
grocery store and get fresh fruit, but regardless of which method you choose,
most of us probably don't put a great deal of thought into when we are getting
our recommended daily allowance (RDA) of fruits. However, timing is key.
Fruit has long been a key component of good
nutrition. It has the highest water content of ANY food, which is a good thing
since water is essential for healthy skin, heart, lungs, brain, and even
muscles. Most of the vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and fatty acids that the
body requires can be derived from fruit. Sure, we can still get these elements
from eating a variety of foods in our diet, but let's face it: our ancestors
did not start out as carnivorous beings. Instead they subsisted primarily on
the wondrous bounty of fruit.
Why is fruit so good for your body? Aside from the
rich vitamins and minerals it can provide, fruit is the easiest food to digest
because it requires less energy to do so than any other thing you can consume!
Anatomy 101 teaches us that all things consumed by the body are eventually
broken down into smaller molecules of essential nutrients needed by the human
body for proper function. "Meatier" foods that convert to proteins or
amino acids in the body, such as chicken, beef, and pork , can take as much as
one to four hours and massive amounts of energy to digest. Fruit, which turns
to glucose (sugar) in the body, is never actually digested in the stomach - it
has usually been predigested through the processes of mastication and salivary
amylases that catalyze break-down in the mouth and esophagus before the food
ever reaches the stomach. To make things simpler: that means fruits can break
down in twenty to thirty minutes, pass through the intestines, and give off
nutrients to the body that it would take other foods HOURS to do!
However, all of this phenomenal processes can only
take place if eaten CORRECTLY. This fact was amazing to me - the key to eating
fruit and achieving maximum nutritional potential from doing so is to eat fruit only on an empty stomach, never after
meals. You are probably as bewildered by
this as I was when I first researched the topic. Why is this so important?
There are a number of reasons.
(1) Causes Gas & Bloating
As mentioned previously, fruit is digested so
efficiently that it is practically ready to pass directly from your stomach to
your intestines and be processed out of your body. Therefore, when you eat
something else (less digestively efficient) with your fruit, it slows the
normal digestion of the fruit. Simply put: the fruit sits around in the stomach
waiting on whatever you have mixed with it to be digested. In the meantime, the
fruit basically rots in your gut, mixing with hydrochloric (stomach) acid and
becoming acidic and putrified. This causes bloating, gas, diarrhea, heartburn,
indigestion, and an overall feeling of upset stomach.
(2) Beauty Through Fruit
Crazy as it may sound, there has actually been
evidence linking the improper consumption of fruit to aesthetic deterioration,
such as graying hair, male pattern baldness, heavy circles and bags under the
eyes, nervous outbursts, and halitosis. While these facts have not been proven
in a clinical trial, some evidence is there. Why not give it a try and try to
stave off the effects of old age as long as possible? It couldn't hurt!
A few tips about fruits:
- Cooking fruit, such as frying bananas or grilling
pineapples, actually strips all the nutrients from the fruit. The heat removes
most of the vitamins from the fruit and renders it pretty much useless in the
"good for you" department.
- If you are going to drink fruit juice, make sure
it is the real deal. Don't drink juice from cans and if you buy juice at the
grocery store, make sure it is PURE, not from concentrate, and contains no high
fructose corn syrup. This defeats the purpose of trying to be healthy and drink
fruit juice in the first place.
- Eating a whole fruit is better than drinking the
juice because the nutrients are all intact, none are lost through the processes
of juicing and/or packaging.
- Pulp is the most antioxidant rich portion of the
fruit, so opt out of "pulp free" juices and go for the nutrient rich
version - or better yet, just buy the whole fruit.
For more information about the benefits of fruit
and the correct way to consume it, visit the following websites:
பச்சைக்காய்கறிகள்
மற்றும் வேக வைத்த காய்கறிகள் தானிய வகைகள் மாவுசத்து நிறைந்த பொருட்கள் பழங்களை
உண்பதால் உடலின் சக்தி அதிகரிக்கிறது. நோய் எதிர்ப்பு தன்மை அதிகரிப்பதால் உடல்
ஆரோக்கியம் பெறுகிறது. பழங்கள் அனைத்தும் முக்கியத்துவம் இருந்தாலும்
அன்னாசிப்பழம் ஊட்டச்சத்து அதிகம் நிறைந்த பழமாகும்.
