Eating Fruit on an Empty Stomach: Is it Dangerous?

Eating Fruit on an Empty Stomach: Is it Dangerous?

H. Elizabeth Hunter, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Apr 23, 2009 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."

·         MORE:

·         A Dangerous Method

·         Nutrients

·         Fruits and Vegetables

·         Fresh Fruits

FlagPost a comment

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:

www.globalhealthandfitness.com/how%20to%20eat%20fruit.htm 
www.scribd.com/doc/6123236/Make-It-Habbit-of-Eating-Fresh-Fruits-on-an-Empty-Stomach