Can you eat too much fruits?
The health directorate recommend five portions of fruits and greens a day. But what happens if you eat more? Can you eat too much fruits?
Fruits and greens are an important part of a healthy diet. Guidelines from the directorate of health says a minimum of five portions a day is needed to assure a satisfying number of vitamins and minerals that are important for our health. Yet, there is balance here as it is with everything else. Truth is that you can eat too much fruits.
Fruit contains sugar
Even though fruit is good for you one cannot avoid the sugar in it. Yes, there is a difference between fruit sugar and the regular, white sugar, but the difference is smaller than you might think. Sugar, also called fructose, consist of 50% fructose and 50% glucose. Fruit sugar contains 40-55% fructose and the rest glucose. In other words, content really isn’t so different.
Glucose are broken down in your stomach and absorbed into the blood. As a response to this your body starts producing insulin, which is the body’s natural blood sugar reducing hormone. Glucose will increase you blood sugar and as a consequence, insulin starts processes to move the glucose from the blood and over to your cells. Insulin also contributes greatly to the transformation of proteins and fat.
You can eat too much fruits
If you look at the total amount of sugar it becomes clear that you can eat too much fruits. Although the fruits have lots of nutrients it isn’t solely healthy to be eating too much of it. In the right amount it is great, but as with everything else it all comes down to moderation.
Fruit sugar doesn’t behave that different from white sugar and can lead to too much sugar in your diet. In contrast to candy and sweets you will be getting both vitamins and minerals. Yet eating too much fruits will not be beneficial when all of the fruit sugar comes along. The risk of weight-gaining, overweight and obesity increases when the amount of sugar in your diet becomes too large. This may lead to an increased risk of diabetes type 2, some cancer types and lifestyle diseases. That said, eating too much fruits won’t necessarily make you either fat or cancer sick but try staying within the recommendations given by the health authorities. If you want to eat more than those five portions a day, choose vegetables instead.
Fibers in the fruit might offset some of the sugar
Dr. Robert Lustig is the author of the book “Fat Chance”, which examnines the health risks linked with and over-consumption of processed sugar. He states that fruits consist of both soluble and insoluble fibers, which prevents much of the sugar to be absorbed early in the digestion process. This makes it travel further down the system, where more bacteria make use of the sugar themselves. Hence, less of the consumed fruit sugar gets into your body compared to regular, white sugar.
Vegetables contains less sugar
An alternative to eating too much fruits may be to exchange some of the fruits for vegetables. Veggies are packed with nutrients that are good for you and contains far less sugar than fruits.
Serve a plate of fruits instead of candy and chips. Having vegetables and dip for evening snack is both tasty and healthy, and make sure that at least half of your dinner plate consist of vegetables. If you do this, you’ll be far on your way of establishing healthy, good routines ensuring good health and weight.
- See also: Why you should eat less saturated fat