Is it unhealthy not to eat fruit?
I asked our Instagram and Facebook communities to tell say what comments about Low-Carb absolutely infuriate them.
Lauren Aaliyah, one of our Facebook followers said the thing that irritates her most is when people say:
‘IT’S UNHEALTHY NOT TO EAT FRUIT’
Before we can argue this, we need to discuss what makes an ingredient healthy.
We would all agree that sugar is unhealthy. If not, this article might be too advanced.
We know we need vitamins, but not everyone knows how much of each vitamin we need. I don’t know without checking in on things, but what I do know is that more vitamins are good. Fewer vitamins are bad.
And we know we need iron. Right? You’ve all heard of the 11 vitamins and iron they add to cereals. And I personally know that without iron, I develop anemia or ‘go anemic’.
In short, a ‘healthy’ ingredient would be nutrient dense and low in sugar, right? Great.
Here’s what Jonno’s point of view (with not science)
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Now, here are some really simple graphs that show the sugar, vitamin A and iron content of fruits and vegetables.
The vegetable with the highest sugar content is the beet, but its sugar content is way overshadowed by the sugar in apples, which are only number 5 on the list of highest sugar fruits. From this test, it is obvious that fruits contain more sugar than vegetables.
Below, you can see that the vegetable with the highest vitamin A content is a sweet potato (borderline vegetable / starchy food, but not a fruit). It contains five times more vitamin A than the highest vitamin A containing fruit, dried apricots. So we can safely say that vegetables are higher in at least one vitamin (I’ve seen the other graphs, this is a common trend), than fruits.
Below you can see the highest ranked vegetables in terms of iron content, by far outweigh (300-400% more) any of their top ranking fruity counterparts.
In summary:
Fruit contains more sugar, fewer vitamins and less iron than vegetables. Fact.
Unless there is some other marvelous nutrient lurking in fruit that we don’t get in vegetables, I’d say that myth is busted.
If you’re interested in seeing which vegetables are best for a low-carb diet, and how to rank them, download the complete low-carb food list here.
