Question by Cosmic Dust Bunny: What are the weight loss benefits of becoming a Fruitarian?
I’m doing a project for anatomy, and I need to convince the class on how being a fruitarian is beneficial to your health, as well as being a great weight loss diet.
Any suggestions?

Best answer:

Answer by Cindy in Texas
Protein & saturated fat are necessary for good health. Fruit provides neither.

As healthy as fruit may be, fructose the sugar in most fruits creates triglycerides. Triglycerides “trap” fat in fat cells.

Dr. Mercola recounts –

I experimented with following a mostly vegetarian diet …

However, after a few weeks of eating fruit for breakfast I was stunned to discover my fasting triglycerides had skyrocketed from below 100 to nearly 3,000 (yes that is not a typo)! Clearly this diet was NOT right for me and was rapidly doing some serious damage to my body.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/09/17/angelina-jolie-says-vegan-diet-nearly-killed-her.aspx

Fructose is the most lipogenic (fat producing) carb. Table sugar is also a refined product & not much better. Sucrose (table sugar) is made of 50% fructose and 50% glucose, whereas high-fructose corn syrup can be either 55% fructose, 45% glucose, or 42% fructose, 58% glucose. Sodas have been found with up to 65% fructose.

Researchers from the University of California, Davis compared glucose and fructose consumption among 32 overweight or obese people and found they resulted in very different health changes.

After drinking either a fructose- or glucose-sweetened beverage that made up 25 percent of their daily calories for 12 weeks, both groups gained a similar amount of weight. However, those drinking the fructose-sweetened beverage experienced an array of other unhealthy effects, including:

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An increase in visceral fat, the kind that embeds itself between tissues in organs
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Less sensitivity to insulin, one of the first signs of diabetes
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Increased fat production in the liver
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Elevated LDL (bad) cholesterol
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Increased levels of triglycerides

People who drank the glucose-sweetened beverage, meanwhile, experienced no such changes.

“This suggests that in the same way that not all fats are the same, not all dietary carbohydrates are the same either,” Peter Havel, professor of nutrition at the University of California Davis

http://www.sixwise.com/Newsletters/2009/April/29/Glucose-Fructose-Sucrose-Whats-the-Difference.htm

The body does better with more saturated fat than less. Saturated fats are required to make many vitamins & minerals bioavailable so they can be incorporated into the body structure. Saturated fat is required for the body to function properly & to regenerate & heal.

7 Reasons to Eat More Saturated Fat

1) Improved cardiovascular risk factors

Saturated fat in the diet is the only means to reduce the levels of lipoprotein (a) — that correlates strongly with risk for heart disease. Eating fats raises the level of HDL, the so-called good cholesterol.

2) Stronger bones

Saturated fat is required for calcium to be incorporated into bone – According to expert in human health, Mary Enig, Ph.D., as much as 50 percent of the fats in the diet should be saturated fats for calcium to be effective in the bone structure.

3) Improved liver health

Studies show that saturated fat encourages the liver cells to dump fat content. Saturated fat has been shown to protect the liver from the toxic insults of alcohol & medications and even to reverse the damage.

4) Healthy lungs

For proper function, the airspaces of the lungs have to be coated with a thin layer of lung surfactant. The fat content of lung surfactant is 100 percent saturated fatty acids. Replacement of these critical fats by other types of fat makes faulty surfactant & potentially causes breathing difficulties, collapse of the airspaces & respiratory distress.

5) Healthy brain

Your brain is mainly made of fat & cholesterol. Though highly unsaturated essential fatty acids found in cold-water fish (EPA & DHA) are important for brain & nerve function, most of the fatty acids in the brain are actually saturated. The brain needs saturated fats to function optimally.

6) Proper nerve signaling

Certain saturated fats, found in butter, lard, coconut oil, & palm oil, function directly as signaling messengers that influence the metabolism. Without the correct signals to tell the organs & glands what to do, the job gets done improperly.

7) Strong immune system

Saturated fats found in butter & coconut oil (myristic acid & lauric acid) play key roles in immune health. Loss of sufficient saturated fatty acids in the white blood cells hampers their ability to recognize & destroy foreign invaders, such as viruses, bacteria, & fungi. Myristic & lauric acid have potent germ-killing ability. We need dietary replenishment of them to keep the immune system vigilant against the development of cancerous cells & infectious invaders.

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/06/06/saturated-fat/

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