Healthy Carbs: Fruit
May I share a fun, nerdy game that my family likes to play? It’s called “Vegetable or Fruit?” It goes like this:
Is a tomato a vegetable or a fruit?
It’s a fruit!
Ok, you might’ve know that one. Then, tell me, is a squash a vegetable or a fruit?
A squash is a fruit too!
A fruit is defined as a seed-containing structure that blossoms from a flowering plant. So, by this definition, a cucumber is a fruit too!
It’s a little silly that fruits and vegetables are confused so often. In general, we correlate the taste of fruit with sweetness! So, I think many fruits are misnamed as vegetables because they’re not sweet. It seems just wrong to call a cucumber a fruit, right?
To be honest - we get fruits and veggies a little confused when it comes to nutrition too! Fruits are often (inappropriately) equated to vegetables in discussions about healthy eating, meal plans and diets. Both fruits and veggies are healthy carbs, but there is one very important distinction between them. Do you know what it is?
It's sugar!
It’s sugar! If you missed my blog post on how we metabolize sugar, click here.
A non-starchy vegetable, like broccoli, has essentially no sugar. But most foods that we think of as fruits contain a specific sugar called fructose. You can think of fructose as fruit sugar.
Fructose can’t be used as fuel like our primary source of sugar, glucose. Instead, fructose goes directly to the liver. In the liver, it is broken down and stored as fat. This can cause overall body fat but especially fatty liver disease (in the same way that abusing alcohol does).
But, on the way to the liver, fructose still triggers insulin (the sugar and fat storage hormone). The trick is that insulin can’t respond to fructose. In other words, insulin can’t put fructose away. This, simply put, is insulin-resistance. Insulin levels are up but the insulin is ineffective. Then, blood sugar remains too high. These are baby steps toward Type 2 diabetes.
So, am I saying that eating fruit will cause diabetes? No! Don’t worry - this is not a “you-can’t-eat-fruit” post. But I do think that fruit is often treated like an “all-you-can-eat” food. And it’s not. We have to balance the many benefits of healthy carbs with the risks of excess sugar.
First, how much sugar is excess sugar?
What does glycemic index mean? And what's the difference between glycemic index and glycemic load?
In order to explain how much sugar is excess sugar, I’ll describe the glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL). For decades, the glycemic index has been used to quantify a food’s sugar content. It’s been especially useful for those with diabetes. The GI describes how quickly blood sugar spikes after eating 50 grams of a carb.
The shortcoming of the GI is that it uses 50 grams as a serving size for every carb, which isn’t reasonable. To give you an idea, an average orange contains 11 grams of carbs. So, for the glycemic index to have a real-world application, you’d have to eat at least 4 oranges. The practical concept of a serving size makes the science of the glycemic index impractical.
So, a new measure called the glycemic load (GL) was developed. The GL considers the amount of carbs in a food, its serving size and how quickly the blood sugar spikes. The GL is more of a real-life number.
A glycemic index under 55 is characterized as low. A glycemic load under 10 is low. For a comprehensive list of over 2, 000 foods and their GI and GL, click here. In the meantime, a watermelon is an excellent example of why glycemic load is more meaningful than glycemic index. The GI of watermelon is 72 - high. But because watermelon contains mostly water, the GI is 4 - low.
So, to help you make your fruit-eating habit as healthy as possible, here is a list of some popular fruits (fresh and dried) and their GL, listed from lowest to highest (remember low is less than 10):
Glycemic Load
- Strawberries: 1
- Plums: 2
- Grapefruit: 3
- Raspberries: 3
- Oranges: 3
- Pears: 4
- Watermelon: 4
- Blueberries: 5
- Peaches: 5
- Apples: 6
- Mango: 8
- Pineapple: 8
- Cherries: 9
- Grapes: 11
- Bananas: 16
- Dates (dried): 18
- Raisins: 28
Next, is juicing healthy?
When I was a girl, I loved the tart sweetness of a Granny Smith. But even more than that, I loved apple juice. The brand name was Veryfine and it came in a nostalgic glass bottle. Am I the only one?
Nope! I’m in good company! According to the US Department of Agriculture, the apple is the most commonly consumed fruit in the US. Yay! But, the majority of the apples are consumed in juice, not whole apples! On average, each American drinks about 14 pounds of apples in juice each year! In comparison, each of us eats only about 10 pounds of whole apples yearly. This is the same for oranges too. And apples and oranges are routinely Americans’ #1 and #2 most consumed fruits.
So, here’s the thing: if you’re drinking apple juice, you’re missing out on the most healthful part of the apple ... the fiber!
Fiber binds sugar. So, when you eat a carb with a hefty load of fiber (like an apple!), less sugar is floating in your gut and later in your blood.
On the other hand, when you drink juice, there’s no fiber. There’s only sugar. Drinking fruit juice is like mainlining sugar. It spikes your blood sugar quickly but it crashes almost as quickly. That up and down is what leads to cravings and other undesirable effects. (Juicing, as used in cleanses and detoxes, really has to include vegetables to get the desired effects. 100% fruit juice will not jumpstart your health.)
Not for nothing - you’d have to press between 4 and 8 apples to make one glass of apple juice. So, you’re literally downing 4 to 8 times as much sugar … with essentially no fiber to bind up some sugar.
Last thing - juice isn’t at all filling! So, the average person will still want food after drinking a glass of juice. You’ll get hungry!
Have I convinced you to just eat the apple?
Consider eating whole fruit instead of drinking fruit juice.
Consider eating whole fruit instead of drinking fruit juice.
But what about a healthy smoothie?
Smoothies are simple, tasty and portable. And, depending on your nutrition goals, a smoothie can be an entire, well-balanced meal.⠀
So, here are some things to consider when you’re drinking a smoothie:
- They’re most nutritious when they’re homemade. This way - you know the exact ingredients - ideally, whole fruits. And it’s so much cheaper too!
- Pay attention to the base ingredient of the smoothie. If it’s juice or yogurt, the smoothie likely contains excess sugar.
- How many servings of fruit are included? Including more than 2 servings will also stack up your daily sugar consumption.
- Is there a veggie in it? Veggies add nutrients to your smoothie without the sugar. Veggies also add more oh-so-important fiber!
- Look out for sweeteners like agave or honey. Though well-intentioned, they’re adding even more sugar. ⠀
▫️If you want your smoothie to function like a meal (yes, it really can!), include a protein and a healthy fat. These are the basics of a healthy smoothie recipe!
Is frozen fruit healthy?
Have you ever been in the mood for a summer fruit in the winter? I certainly have! And I’ve been disappointed when I got to the grocery store and the fruit wasn’t available! At times, fresh blackberries can be pretty hard to find in February in Connecticut. They’re out of season!
This is just one of the reasons to buy frozen fruit. Frozen fruit is readily available - regardless of the season. Even better than that - before fruit that is destined to be frozen and packaged, is picked at the height of ripeness. That locks in nutrients like vitamins and antioxidants.
Have you ever wondered how there are fresh apples in New Jersey in the middle of winter? It’s because they were picked before they ripened on the tree and sat in barrels for weeks. Or they were picked in a far-away land like Brazil and made the long voyage to the states for your enjoyment. During this long wait time before the apple gets to you, it’s losing some of its benefits day by day.
Is dried fruit healthy?
I think dried fruit is absolutely delicious! Raisins, craisins, dried apricots and more! So! Good!
Did you catch the list of fruits and their glycemic load that I included earlier in this post? Well, the glycemic load of raisins is 28 (and low is under 10). That’s because removing the water from fruit (drying it) concentrates the sugar. So, there’s more sugar in each bite of raisins than grapes.
More than that, dried fruit is also sweetened with juice to brighten the taste and soften the bite. Yup! Even more sugar!
Overall, fresh or frozen fruit is more healthful than dried fruit. You may want to think of dried fruit more like candy.
Should I buy organic fruit?
Yes! … And no. Farming is a huge industry; so, farmers are trying to keep their highest yield at harvest time. So, most American farms utilize some sort of pesticide or rodenticide. And these “cides” often remain on food even after you scrub them.
Fruits with thin, fragile skin are the most likely to get contaminated. Makes sense, right? The Environmental Working Group (EWG) makes two lists: the dirty dozen and the clean fifteen. The dirty dozen lists the dirtiest produce and recommends buying the organic versions of these 12 items .
Dirty Dozen
- Strawberries
- Apples
- Nectarines
- Peaches
- Celery
- Grapes
- Cherries
- Spinach
- Tomatoes
- Sweet bell peppers
- Cherry tomatoes
- Cucumbers
The Environmental Working Group also publishes the cleanest 15 varieties of produce. The recommendation here is to buy conventionally grown fruit.
Clean Fifteen
- Cauliflower
- Cantaloupe
- Grapefruit
- Honeydew
- Eggplant
- Kiwi
- Papaya
- Mangoes
- Asparagus
- Onions
- Frozen sweet peas
- Cabbage
- Pineapples
- Sweet corn
- Avocados
Fruits are healthy carbs! And eating fruit - whole with all its fiber, vitamins and minerals - nourishes us. Some outdated recommendations suggest that we eat 3 to 5 servings of fruit daily. More recent recommendations tell us to stick with 2 servings each day. So, you may be adding excess sugar to your daily diet just by adding a bunch of fruit to your day. This excess sugar is hidden in plain sight in delicious, nutritious fruits! To discover how to find “hidden” sugar and learn about 10 “healthy” foods with lots of sneaky sugars, click here!
