Addicted to sugar? Dangerous fruit?

Sugar addict. Talking about the raw vegan diet, many raw foodists are said to be addicted to sugar. Because of all the sweet fruit we love to eat. Sweet fruit, so they say, is dangerous. Bad for you. All this sugar. Most people claiming this, btw, are those who are following a totally different life style and diet. Cooked food, standard diet, often including lots of refined grains, gluten, animal products, artificial additives – and sugar. Isolated sugar. Which, you’ll probably agree, definitely is bad for your health. And, same as salt, indeed is addictive.

Addicted to sugar … that’s what we, as humans, somehow actually are. From birth. Because sugar is what keeps us going. Natural sugar, natural carbohydrates. Included in natural food – and natural food means: food that grows on trees, bushes, fields. Eaten in its fresh and whole state, not in any kind of isolated or concentrated form.

We are hooked on the sweet taste from the beginning of our lives: breastmilk tastes slightly sweet. Our instinct tells us since primeval times: sweet = nutritious.

Natural sweetness is not as intense as e. g. pure honey. Natural fruit, berries and roots have a much lighter sweet taste.

Modern fruit indeed, for the most part, is very much sweeter. Bred to culinary delight, big size, and comfortable eating (like without seeds).

In the 1950s, an apple contained about 3-5 gram fructose; today it’s 20-30g! And yes, this is also true for organic apples.

Source: Dr. med. Barbara Miller in an interview at the conference “Lebensenergiekonferenz 2015”..

And, at privemal times, when our ancestors fed themselves by collecting their food in nature, apples like we know them did not even exist.

Fruit bred to high sugar content moreover is not only too high in fructose (in relation to the fibre and minerals contained in the fruit), but also in succrose, which originally was not contained in apples at all.

Dried fruit, in particular, i recommend to only enjoy for special occasions and in small amounts. On the one hand, many of the dried fruit available are something you would never find in nature: banana, e. g., or pineapple simply decompose when not harvested/eaten. Figs, on the other hand, dry naturally at the tree. Anyway, dried fruit is highly concentrated and extremely high in energy; beduines would travel the desert with nothing but one handful of dates a day!

A body nourished naturally and attentive will show clear signs when saturated with sugar. And will eventually crave minerals, non-sweet food. Like non-sweet fruit, green leaves, roots, seeds.

Anyway, in the process of transitioning to a more healthy diet, i believe it to be better for your health, to eat lots of fresh sweet fruit and small amounts of dried fruit of any kind occasionally than to fall back to industrial food, artificial sweets from the supermarket, and even as sweet bars, raw or not, from your health store.

To get back to the “addict” in sugar addict – even with a diet very high in sweet fruit, the term “addiction” does not seem to hit, imho. Addictiv behaviour is the contrary of conscious choices; someone addicted to whatever is acting unconsciously, under compulsion. Like eating sugar because s*he “has to”. Addiction also includes withdrawal symptoms and the fear of abstention. A conscious diet, conscious choices from a variety of natural unprocessed food, based on your instincts is anything but addictive. My body is telling me what it needs right now – appetite is one signal amongst others. Choosing from nothing else but natural unprocessed food, and combined with attentiveness and some experience, this works great! That’s why i sometimes crave sweet fruit, and sometimes greens. Not having a problem with not eating at all occasionally.

Processed raw food, including isolated or extracted ingredients, sweeteners, or salt, can lead to addictive eating though. It might be hard to stop eating chocolate before the bar is finished. Even with raw chocolate. This is much less likely to happen with fresh fruit! The longer you are following the raw vegan lifestyle, the better you will feel when your body has enough – even if half the tree is still filled with cherries. 😉

If you feel you are overeating on sweet fruit, not being able to stop, it might help you to ALWAYS combine sweet fruit with greens. Wild greens are perfect. Eat the leaves together with the cherries growing on that tree. Or blackberry leaves with the berries.

Always eat fruit as complete as possible. Including peel and seeds, if possible. (It IS possible for more fruit than you might guess!)

Zen-eating: eat when you eat. Be where you are. Enjoy your food. Listen to your whole body, not only your tongue. And, if you cannot already rely on your body’s wisdom: use your mind! And remember the greens.

Bottom line: don’t let “news” like the alleged danger of fruit put you off the raw vegan lifestyle. Choose consciously, take your time, care for enough GREENS in your diet!.

And, above all, don’t overthink! Don’t make things be complicate, don’t worry about (im)possible difficulties before even beginning! Otherwise you will never start (and this is not only true for diet changes 😉 ). Get started, try it, listen to your body. There are tons of inspiration and ideas to start with – like this blog here 🙂