Discussion Board

I recently ran into Michael Arnstein on youtube and his videos on fruitarianism. It sounds really good. Any thoughts on why this may or may not be a good idea?

kyleplattner -

Jeff N (who is the nutritional expert for the McDougall program) has some interesting comments in his section. I pull this link from there:

http://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=11932&p=114620&hilit=fruitarianism#p114620

Hope you find it helpful.

Donna

I've seen Dr. Greger, Jeff Novick, and Brenda Davis speak. They all give fruitarianism the thumbs down.

One thing that really got me, was raw foodists, after eating all that raw food for the "anti-oxidants" weren't getting any more antioxidants than people who eat SAD. Vegans, on the other hand, got a significant amount. I imagine fruitarians aren't very different from raw.

Please look around at Dr.M's site and I'm sure you will be impressed by seeing people who get RESULTS from eating a starch-based diet.

I ate a low fat raw vegan diet for over two years. Most of my calories came from fruit, but I ate at least a pound or two of greens as well, and a very small amount of added nuts, seeds or avocado. I felt fabulous at first, and loved all that fruit. But then things started not working so well.

I stopped mainly because of these reasons:

1. I checked my cholesterol and my LDL and TG were way elevated compared to what they had been previously on a starch-based diet.

2. I started feeling more and more unbalanced on all that fruit. I would get these horrible crashes in energy that I thought were blood sugar issues (though I never checked during one.) I'd get all sweaty and shaky and dizzy, and I could barely function.

3. Also, eating fruit sugar seemed to make me crave salt, and yet having something high in sodium, like celery juice or actual sea salt, didn't satisfy them, and I felt like I could keep eating and eating. So that made me think that it wasn't an actual physiological need for sodium, but instead was a symptom of being unbalanced because of the fructose.

But I still love fruit

Our closest primate ancestors eat fruit, but also lots and lots of leaves and greens and an occasional bug or small mammal or reptile. Their diet is so restricted that they must live in a rather narrow area. Scientist speculate that when our species started to eat starches, especially cooked starches, we were able to leave the area around the equator and populate the earth. Eating fruit exclusively never was the diet of our species nor even the diet of our nearest primate relatives.

Didi

That's the problem, it "sounds good", but he's only been doing it a few years. I had to stop after about 10 months becaue I developed several alarming problems.

If you follow the raw food forums, in which high-fruit (not high fat) are promoted, you'll see various people loosing their hair, women losing their periods, digestion issues, blood issues, hormone issues, various new pains, acne issues, people developing major (and many) cavities, receeding gums, lightheadedness, sudden weakness, strong cravings, brittle nails, children with "crumbling teeth" and more. These are not symptoms that one would expect months or years after eating the "perfect diet".

Stick with a starch-based diet, since it's been through the test of time and is not an experiment.