Fruit is an essential part of any healthy, well-balanced diet. For years, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has purported the need for between two and four servings of fruit per day for the “health and maintenance” of the body. There’s a reason people once said that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Fruit provides a multitude of nutrients, like vitamin C, potassium, folic acid and dietary fiber, that may help in reducing the risk of stroke, type-2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and even some forms of cancer. But what about a diet plan that is solely made up of fruit?
How it Works
As with any diet, the fruit diet is a diet plan in which you limit the food you eat–in this case, the category of food–by restricting your consumption to those provisions that fall either strictly or loosely within the food group of fruit. By doing this, you inevitably reduce the amount of calories you consume in any given day.
When you lower your caloric intake, you loose weight. Not that there aren’t any benefits to a diet plan rich in fruits, many of the foods contained in this group are filled with valuable vitamins, mineral, antioxidants and enzymes. But the decrease in your daily caloric intake is one of the main components of the fruit diet. Typically, you’ll drop your intake of food down to around 1,500 calories a day.
The Food
Depending on which fruit diet you are on, the foods that make up this type of eating regimen will vary from plan to plan. Some fruit diets are limited to strictly those foods that are commonly defined as fruits, such as apples, oranges, plums, pears and peaches, to name a few. Other diets have a far wider scope in their selection of “fruits,” incorporating fare not unlike seeds, nuts, grains, legumes and vegetables that come off a bloom. There also are those plans that concentrate solely on products identified and characterized as organic. No matter what type of fruit diet you are subscribing to, you should understand the restrictive nature, especially for extended periods of time, in which you are placing your body, both with variety and nutrition.
The Benefits
Subscribing to a diet consisting exclusively of fruits does have its benefits. As mentioned before, any increase in your consumption of fruits can only help in the health and care of your body and may reduce the risk of many chronic diseases. But fruits, and a diet wholly composed of these foods, can also act as a detoxifier for your system. The easiest way to think of the fruit diet is as a sort of fast from protein. When you eliminate protein from your diet, you are allowing the body a chance to rid itself of the waste and toxins associated with protein. Plus, fruits have the tendency of leaving our bodies much faster than many other foods we eat. Their nutrients are absorbed into our system and then are purged from our bodies.
The Precautions
With any sort of diet, you’re going to run into some precautions and potential health problems. The fruit diet is no different. Besides the fact that you may experience the occasional bout of diarrhea, which with extended periods could lead to dehydration, you might also become deficient in certain nutrients while subscribing to this kind of eating regimen. Make sure you are able to identify and include sources of calcium, iron, protein, fat and vitamins B12 and D to truly balance your diet.
A Final Say
If you’re planning on trying the fruit diet, it’s really best to only do it for a short period of time (about 3 days) mostly as a way to detoxify your body, not to shrink its size. The best and most healthy way to approach a diet is as a way of life. A well-balanced diet is always your best bet. You still get to eat almost everything you’ve ever eaten, just in moderation.
By Dana Severson, eHow Editor
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