By Sejal Shah | Posted: October 31, 2019
Fruit is the most vital and energy-giving food that nature has gifted us. Almost everyone has a liking for fruit. With their sweet, juicy flavors, bright colors, and pleasant aromas, fruits are a food group that our body is biologically adapted to consume. We crave them for a reason.
Eating fruit has lots of benefits: they are the best source of the natural sugar needed for energy, and they’re packed with vitamins, antioxidants, and fiber. Fruits make your skin and hair healthy, glowing, smooth, and beautiful. They are easier to digest and eat than grains, and gentle on your body.
According to many studies, a sufficient intake of fruits and vegetables has been associated with a reduced risk of chronic diseases and body weight management. The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations recommends that adults consume at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, excluding starchy vegetables.
People who eat lots of fruit live longer. A study published in the British Medical Journal (September 2001), showed that fresh fruit offers the best bet for a long life. The results of this study showed that frequent fruit eaters had a 32 percent lower risk of dying from cerebrovascular disease such as stroke, and a 24 percent lower risk of dying from ischemic heart disease than those who ate fruit less than once a day.
"I love fruits but they don’t agree with me…”
This is the most common comment we tend to hear in regards to eating fruit. It’s true that eating 5 servings of fruit a day is beneficial to weight loss and balancing blood sugar, but it’s important to remember that nutrition is all about timing. This means that we need to know when or how to eat fruit in order to reap all of its amazing benefits. If you have mastered the correct way of eating fruits, you have mastered the secrets of beauty, longevity, health, energy, happiness, and a healthy weight.
Here’s The Healthy Way to Eat Fruits
1. Eat fruit as an energy booster
Fruit should be eaten on an empty stomach and not with or immediately after any other food: this includes dessert! If eaten on an empty stomach, fruit plays a major role in enabling the body to detoxifying the system, supplying the body with plenty of energy.
Harvey and Marilyn Diamond, authors of the international bestseller Fit for Life, say that "Fruit is the most important food you can eat. But if fruit is eaten on top of other foods, many problems result," and “the best time to consume fruit is in the morning. The best way to go about this is to consume nothing but fruit from the time of waking up in the morning till at least noon”. According to Dr Vijaya Venkat, a renowned naturopath based in Mumbai, India, this is also the rule of thumb in traditional Indian nutrition and wellness teachings.
All the vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, amino acids, and fatty acids that the human body requires are found in fruits. When fruits are correctly consumed, nothing can surpass the life force it generates. A vigorous life needs energy!
Digestion uses more energy than any other physical activity, and fruit requires less energy to be digested than any other food. Other foods spend anywhere from 1.5 to 4 hours in the stomach, where the initial expenditure of energy takes place. Fruit, however, is only in the stomach for a very short time. It passes through the stomach in 20 to 30 minutes and breaks down to release life-giving nutrients in the intestines.
Eating fruit on an empty stomach helps in generating energy instantly, as opposed to the slow burn of a caffeine-laden cup of coffee or a carb-fest breakfast of toast and eggs. Energy cannot begin to build up until the intestines absorb the food. A breakfast comprising of more complex cooked foods forces the body to work for hours spending energy on digestion. Having a fruit-based breakfast makes sense, because it makes the body more energetic and alert first thing in the morning!
Pulpy fruits like bananas, mangoes, papayas, apples, figs, pineapples, dates, and all dried fruits (raisins, apricots) are more concentrated, and will stay in your stomach longer than the watery fruits, so you will feel full longer. This makes them a great option for breakfast.
2. Detox your body with fruits
It is imperative that the body be constantly cleaned of toxic waste that builds up within the system. The most effective way to consistently cleanse your body is through the consumption of food that is high in water content. At 80-90% water, fruit has the highest water content of any food, so they’re a great option for flushing out the toxins from your body.
A 3-day “fruit fast” is a very simple and effective way to cleanse and detoxify your body. Just eat fruits and drink fruit juice throughout the 3 days, and you will be surprised when your friends tell you how radiant you look! During the “fruit fast”, you can eat different fruits at different times, although occasionally a mixed fruit salad would also be permissible and more interesting.
I personally practice one all-fruit day a week, and it’s worked wonders for my energy and vitality.
3. Are you spoiling your digestion with fruit?
Let's say you eat 2 slices of toast and then some fruit. The fruit is ready to go into the intestine, but the toast in the stomach is preventing it. In the meantime, the toast is getting digested using acids, and the fruit comes into contact with this acidic mass and begins to spoil. If it had been eaten first, as fruits digest faster, it would've gone into the intestines without it getting spoiled with the rest of the food. When fruit spoils in the body, it creates gas and a tendency to burp. As a result, the stomach bloats and causes a sensation of heaviness. You may have heard people complain that they want to burp after eating watermelon, or that banana makes them want to empty their bladder often. This is all a result of eating fruit after a meal.
Pay attention to the amount of time that should elapse between eating foods other than fruit and then eating fruit. On an empty stomach, one may eat all the fruit one likes over as long a period as one wishes.
After drinking juice, which is primarily water, you can eat other foods after about ten to fifteen minutes have elapsed. After eating a whole fruit or a fruit smoothie, wait about thirty to forty minutes before eating other food. After eating bananas, raisins or dried fruit, you should wait for about forty minutes. Once you have eaten something other than fruit, you should wait at least three hours before eating fruit or drinking juice again. The only exception to this is that if you have raw vegetables by themselves without dressing or dip, fruit can then be eaten about twenty to thirty minutes later. If you wish to have fruit as a snack or at night before bed, be sure that at least three hours elapse after eating anything cooked and about one and a half to two hours after eating a salad.
4. Eat according to your Ayurvedic dosha type
Ayurveda, as outlined in ancient Vedic texts, is a 5,000-year-old healing science, philosophy and practice. One of the first steps toward gaining clarity and control over your own health is understanding the three dynamic energies known in Ayurveda as doshas. These are Pitta, Vata, and Kapha. Doshas, put very simply, are the biological energies that make us who we are as individuals. They are not one size fits all! Your dosha is not only as unique as you are – it is what makes you so unique.
“According to Ayurveda, when fruits are ripe and eaten in the proper season and climate, they are pure nectar. They immediately turn into rasa (nutritional fluid) — the first of the seven body tissues. Fresh ripe fruit requires practically no digestion and helps to increase ojas, the finest by-product of digestion that enhances immunity, happiness, and strength.” - MAPI.
Vata Balancing Fruits | Pitta Balancing Fruits | Kapha Balancing Fruits |
Balancing tastes:sweet, sour, and salty | Balancing tastes: sweet, bitter, and astringent | Balancing tastes: pungent, bitter, and astringent |
All sweet fruit (so long as they are extra-ripe), fresh dates, figs, sweet apples, bananas, mangos, and raisins. | All sweet and astringent fruit, apples, avocados, coconuts, figs, melons, oranges, pears, plums, pomegranates, and mangos. Dried fruit is to be avoided. | All fruit can be eaten in moderate quantities. Favor astringent fruit. |
Avoid unripe fruits, as they are too astringent. | Avoid sour fruit (except Amla and lemon) | Avoid generally most sweet and sour fruit |
To summarize:
Eat fruit on an empty stomach. It can be at any time of day as long as you eat it on an empty stomach.
After eating fruit, leave a time gap of 30 minutes before you eat any other food.
If you've already eaten a meal, wait for about 3 hours before you eat fruit, so as to ensure that all of the previous meal is digested before the fruit goes in.
Try to eat fruit mostly before noon. This helps to raise blood sugar in a slow and steady manner. Since the digestive system has been at rest through the night, eating fruit is a gentle way of restarting it in the morning.
Never eat fruit with other foods: eat it only on its own. There is a small exception for citrus fruits and nuts eaten together, because the citric acid from the fruits assists in the digestion of nuts.
Do no eat fruit as dessert after a meal.
Eat fruits as per your Ayurveda dosha type.
Other important tips for eating fruits:
Try your best to eat organic and seasonal fruit whenever possible. It is a healthier option.
Wash fruits thoroughly before eating.
All fruit and fruit juice must be fresh. Do not eat any fruit that has been cooked, canned, frozen, or processed in any way. These products often contain large amounts of sugar, preservatives, and other undesirable chemical additives. Cooking fruit destroys all the vitamins present therein.
Eating the pulp or whole fruit is far better than drinking the juices. Fiber is good for you!
Whenever drinking juice (or a smoothie), it is extremely important that you do not gulp it down. It should be consumed slowly. Take only one mouthful; let the saliva mix with it and then swallow. In other words, “chew” your juice.
It is incorrectly presumed that some fruits like oranges and lemons are acidic and will enhance acidity in your stomach. Research shows that all fruits become alkaline in your body.
Be a little bit careful with citrus fruits when you are ill. Your body is already very busy detoxifying, and when stimulating this process by consuming citrus, you might feel even worse. The best drink when you’re feeling under the weather is a glass with the juice of a boiled lemon (boil lemon in water for 5 -7 min) in lukewarm water. Because you only use half a lemon, the detoxifying effect is not so strong, but your body does receive some much-needed vitamin C.
Wishing you all the wellness that fruit brings!
Sejal Shah, E-YRT 500 Sri Sri Yoga Teacher, YACEP, Meditation Teacher, Happiness expert, NYU Post Graduate Medical School approved Yoga-CME retreat facilitator, Mind-Body Wellness Writer, Homeopath. She can be followed on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
