Comment by cconroy
9 years ago
Regardless, people coming away with the conclusion that fructose is bad for you is bananas ;) Also it is not clear that he is for/against eating lots of fruits and starchy veges of which humans thrive on. Lots of evidence for this too!
Fructose is bad for you. A couple pieces of fruit every day is generally fine, because fruits are packed with fiber, but if you e.g. drink 3 glasses of fruit juice per day, that’s terrible for you.
Even eating fruits isn’t the best though. Modern fruits are bred to be as large and sweet as possible.
Fructose is bad for you in isolation, but so is almost anything, but packaged in the fruit is a different story.
Do you think eating 5 oranges is any different than drinking the juice of those 5 oranges?
"Eating fruits is not best" is something that not only goes against science but common sense. Perhaps eating high amounts of fruits could be bad and but im not aware of a study confirming this (when the fruit is eaten whole).
Eating fruit comes with fiber that triggers your body to feel full. Most juice is missing most of its fiber, so you don't get that full feeling. So, yeah, having a cup of apple juice vs eating 5 apples is different: you are more likely to go for the next glass of apple juice than another 5 apples.
There were days in college when I drank 3 glasses of fruit juice with each meal, plus a couple cans of soda during the same day. For some reason, I was convinced that fruit juice was an entirely “natural” and “healthy” beverage. I know better now.
But I also still know people who eat large quantities of fruit continuously throughout the day, probably 8–10 servings daily. They’ve convinced themselves that as long as they avoid soda, candy, donuts, and ice cream, they can just eat as many fruits as they want with no effect. It’s true that the fruits are better than just guzzling Coca Cola. But it’s not a healthy balanced diet.
They’d be much better off replacing some of the oranges with carrots, some of the bananas with spinach, some of the mangos with broccoli.
Fruit isn’t inherently evil, but like everything, it’s best in moderation.
A large glass of OJ can contain 5 oranges and I can down it in 2 minutes and not feel full.
Eating 5 oranges would take me a while. I eat oranges a lot and usually after one it's taken a while so my body can register I'm full.