Have you ever had a perfectly ripe mango or peach, picked from the tree? You bite into its soft flesh, sweet juice drips down your chin, living with flavor. The fragrance of a freshly cut cantaloupe is enough to stimulate salivary glands, preparing the mouth to marry with splendid taste. You could almost call the fruit diet a dessert diet with benefits—and it’s those benefits we want to talk about.
The body's reaction to fruit does not stop in the mouth, but continues as the digestive system accepts a food filled with enzymes. These enzymes do almost all the work of digestion, allowing the pancreas a much-needed rest. Fruit sugars, compounded with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, are carried by the bloodstream and delivered to every cell in the body. Fruit does not create mucus, a sure sign of how clean and suited this fuel is to our metabolic needs. The fibers that are left behind in the colon are moist and cleansing in nature, softening and removing years of impacted mucus.
There are thousands of varieties of delicate, colorful fruit, from a tiny blueberry in the cooler climate of the Northern Hemisphere, to exotic fruit grown in the lush tropics. It’s incredible that most diets consist of heavy mono-tasting foods like hamburgers and french fries, when we consider the abundance and variety of fruit available all year. Fruit is non-addictive and does not create cravings as do fat, salt, and sugar-filled processed foods. In fact, those who live on a high percentage of fresh fruit find themselves sharp-minded and vibrantly energetic.
Fruit sugar, locked into the soft fibers of fresh fruit, is the most perfect fuel for the cells. Gentle, slow-releasing, and energy-sustaining, it is compounded with vitamins, minerals, water-soluble proteins, enzymes and trace elements. As the blood carries fructose to every cell, these life-giving elements are compounded with the fructose molecule, allowing the nutrients to be highly absorbable and readily used. Fructose molecules act as a delivery system to your cells.
A Temporary Period
As with any restrictive diet, like the rawtarian regime or juice fasting, a fruit diet should never become your daily maintenance program. Fruitarians are a fringe group of thin little people who advocate an all-fruit diet with the addition of raw nuts. They claim to have reached a physical, mental, and even spiritual state of utopian health. I can tell you from personal experience that during a juice fast or predominantly fruit diet, mental clarity and the feeling of well-being are greatly enhanced. The need for sleep is reduced and stamina is increased, but the downside is that over time there will be a loss of muscle strength. Even more important is the loss of nutrients offered from a wide spectrum of foods, like wild salmon, whole grains and vegetable foods, to mention only a few.
Some people who use the fruit diet will eat only fruit one day a week, while others may do a three-day fruit diet once a month. I find it far more beneficial to fast (whether on raw fruit or juice) fewer times a year for longer periods. The reason for this is that the first three or four days of a fruit diet will involve detoxification; food addiction withdrawals from fat, salt and sugar; and of course, emotional withdrawals from that morning coffee and danish. It is within the first three days that most people bail out, not being able to endure the pain of detox and withdrawals. But for those who make it through, a wonderful feeling of well-being and health await on the other side. If you only make it through those first initial days and then quit, you will never really enjoy the experience of what it feels like to be in a fasting state. Short fasts will leave you with the false impression that a fruit diet or juice fast is all about detox and withdrawals, when that could not be further from the truth. If you stick it out a little longer, you will experience many more benefits.
Another benefit of a longer fruit diet is that the body is then able to perform a deeper detoxification of years of junk food, dirty air and impure water. Ten years of McDonalds will not be cleaned out in three days—if only it were that easy! It takes some time and investment. I suggest an annual 30-day fruit diet or juice fast, supplemented with vegetable juice and a tablespoon of fresh flax oil daily. You will never be the same.
A Fruit Diet Is Eating in the Raw
While on a fruit diet you are actually on a raw diet, and there are real advantages to eating raw food. North Americans love cooked starch. From muffins to macaroni, starch is the biggest part of our diet. Yams, turnips, corn, beans, peas and potatoes all taste better when cooked, yet there is a change in how these foods are digested after being cooked. Raw corn is high in natural, health-giving oil and starch. However, when cooked it becomes mucus-forming. Raw potatoes can be used in the healing of stomach ulcers, yet through cooking they lose this healing property, becoming mucus-forming. Cooked food causes the immune system to increase the production of white blood cells, reacting as if an intruder had entered the blood. Cooked, starchy food requires strong acids to digest, and excess acid in the blood has a negative effect on the immune system and on healing.
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