Mocktail Minutes

Fruit Doesn't Make You Fat

• Mocktail Minutes • Episode 124

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Fruit does not make you fat! Yes, it is true that fruit is high in natural sugar, but that doesn't mean that it is bad for your health. In this episode we explain the difference between added sugars like high fructose corn syrup and the natural fructose found in fruit.

If you have questions, or topics that you want to hear about, head over to our Instagrams https://www.instagram.com/bayleethedietitian/ or https://www.instagram.com/brianna.dietitian/ and send us a DM! You can also follow the podcast https://www.instagram.com/mocktailminutes/

Featured Mocktails:

The Roasted Purpose 

Click play, sip back, and be empowered.

Baylee:

Hello everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode of Mocktail Minutes. This is Bailey

Brianna:

And this is Brianna.

Baylee:

this week I am drinking. It's the blueberry roasted purpose coffee. 18 grams of collagen for a little, a little snack be, I guess it's, it's kind of like part of my lunch is only lunch right after this. It.

Brianna:

Yeah, I'm just doing clean water.'Cause I'm waiting on my, just ingredients, electrolytes and I don't buy any,'cause I got like three packages. You got like three. So,

Baylee:

Yeah. You don't wanna buy any now?

Brianna:

yeah. But I will say when I don't have electrolytes or something to put in my water, I'm really bad about drinking water.

Baylee:

Oh yeah.

Brianna:

would've easily been like already drank a whole sand lane today. I'm like still really trying to power through.

Baylee:

a leg?

Brianna:

I think it's like halfway full. Still

Baylee:

You are getting there

Brianna:

slowly. Yeah.

Baylee:

today we are talking about fruit. Doesn't make you fat. Brianna you came up with this episode. Have you been talking about this a lot lately? That's usually where ideas come from.

Brianna:

Yeah. Well I feel like I've had a few like clients in the last couple weeks that are like worried about how much fruit they eat because they've heard like, oh, fruit, like too much fruit makes you fat.'cause the natural sugar and fruit, all that. And then I know I have a couple of my like diabetes people that like they're endocrinologist was like, you can't eat fruit anymore because. Fruit will spike your blood sugar, and then fruit will cause weight gain. And so my theme has been fruit does not make you fat.

Baylee:

I like it.

Brianna:

Yeah.

Baylee:

first, diving into that, then number one, fruit sugar is not the same as like your refined sugar. It's not just like this table sugar. It's not the sugar you're buying from the store in the nice little package. Fruit is gonna contain natural sugar, mainly like fructose, glucose, sucrose, but it's also being combined with fiber. It's being combined with water and other micronutrients. So fiber is helping to slow that digestion and prevent blood sugar spikes. Helping keep you full. Water is going to kind of give you that. When you're thinking about water and foods, this is what a lot of people think about like the volume, eating. A lot of it have more water content to it. And then the micronutrients, like you're also getting vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, where you're not getting that from table sugar. So refined sugar, that's gonna be like your soda, your candy, it's just sugar without the fiber or nutrients. So it's easy to over consume'cause it doesn't. Really satisfy you. It might satisfy like maybe that emotional like dopamine hit real quick, but it's not truly satisfying you on like a metabolic level, I would say.

Brianna:

Yeah, well, yeah, because like just plain straight carbs like that aren't meant to make you feel full. So like without the fiber, I mean, you can just chow down on like candy, you know. The other thing is like fruit is really low calorie, you know, like most is between 40 and 80. Calories per like a hundred grams. So that's like, you know, a normal serving of fruit. So like one apple, 95 calories an orange, 62 calories, a cup of blueberries, 85. Like that is not a lot of calories for the volume of food that you're eating compared to like a candy bar that's like around 250 calories or like a bag, like a small bag of chips. Which is like 150 calories for like a handful basically. So fruit, you can eat large volumes of it and still stay within like your caloric meat.

Baylee:

So then we're thinking of like when we're thinking about this fruit and the fructose, so fructose is that main sugar in fruit. It's going to be metabolized differently. It's metabolized in your liver, unlike glucose. So large amounts have added fructose. Thinking about like high fructose corn syrup, we talked about this, what two episodes ago, can lead to fat storage and metabolic problems. And this is where I think we get into the area of. We take a little bit of information and kind of twist it to benefit us

Brianna:

yes.

Baylee:

because it sounds crazier. It, it's gonna make you go viral if you're like, ah, don't eat the blueberry,

Brianna:

Like, did you know that your blueberries are making you fat? I'm like, what?

Baylee:

Because like fruit, the dose, it's a low dose of fructose, and again, it's combined with fiber and water. For example, an apple might have 10 grams of fructose. A can of soda is like 30 to 40 grams, but also no fiber with it. So unless you're just like chowing down on nine bananas at one time, fruit fructose isn't getting anywhere near kind of like that harmful threshold.

Brianna:

Yeah. It's just if you're giving the liver too much to like utilize within that sitting, okay, yes, it's gonna convert it to fat, but your, your fruit isn't doing that. It's just not enough. And when you think of like how quickly you can drink a soda and we're talking like. A 12 ounce normal, small can of soda is like between 30 and 40 grams of fructose. And like, how quickly can you drink a soda? You know, it's just, it's not the same. So no, like your grapes aren't gonna cause you to have fatty liver disease and your blueberries and your bananas. Like the reality is people are not eating the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables daily anyways. I think for fruit it's like something like two cups for women, two and a half or three for men, something like that. But like. I think when they did like their latest survey, it was like less than 12% of people are getting that a day. So no, if less than 12% of American adults are eating the recommended amount of fruit, it's not the fruit that's causing obesity,

Baylee:

Exactly, and I mean we mentioned like the high fructose corn syrup, so this is different. When you're drinking a soda with this and it's just like that 40 grams of free fructose, your liver is getting a huge hit of sugar, that's liquid. If your liver glycogen is already full. This is very common, especially if you're more sedentary. More fructose is going to be pushed towards that fat production. So chronic high intake of this added fructose is what's linked to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And so, you know, I think again, we just get hung up and. Oh my gosh. It's shocking. Fruit is bad for you. And then we just go into the spiral of like, oh my gosh, fruit's supposed to be good and now this person's saying it's bad and I don't know what to do anymore. So if at all we're just gonna drink the soda and we just get down this weird spiral. We don't need to be stressing about fruit. We don't need to be stressing about carrots or oatmeal or, sure. I mean, these things can affect your blood sugar. That's why we teach you how to be strategic with it.

Brianna:

Yeah.

Baylee:

I mean, it's as simple as I, I mean, I do this with Gannon If, because he loves bananas, loves applesauce, pouches, but instead of just doing that for a snack, literally before he starts eating it, I just give him a spoonful of peanut butter, something like that. The kid will just eat it off the spoon, and then I follow it up with, okay, here's your fruit that you want. It creates that balance.

Brianna:

Yeah. Because like the banana itself isn't really gonna make'em feel super full. And that's where people can overdo it with the volume. Like in terms of like the candy and the chips and the soda and stuff like that.'cause again, not gonna make you full. Same thing with like if you just gave'em a bowl of fruit, it's not gonna make'em full. So yeah, pairing it, which makes a huge difference in the long run of like, how much nutrients am I getting? How full am I getting, what's my blood sugar doing?

Baylee:

Mm-hmm.

Brianna:

Yeah, I think we did, we missed that part. And then it's, it's that shock factor I think when like people are on social media and they're like, yeah, so you thought this was healthy.

Baylee:

You wrong?

Brianna:

You're wrong. And yeah, it's that little piece and I'm like, no, it's, it's not your five grams of fructose in like it carrots. I don't know if carrots have five grams, but they're probably around there. You know, it's not carrots.

Baylee:

Not, it's not the blueberries

Brianna:

No. Yeah. So

Baylee:

It's gonna trigger insulin differently, correct.

Brianna:

yeah, you don't have like a really strong like insulin response like you would if you ate something that was primarily glucose. So that's the other thing is, okay, it's not triggering a really high insulin response, which means in theory it's gonna be better for your blood sugar, it's gonna be better, but it's not making you feel super full either. But. Like, that's why berries are so great for like blood sugar, and that's why when you see like all the research of like increasing your consumption of like fruits can help lower your risk of like. You know, diseases like diabetes, it can actually improve your A1C. This is why,'cause you're filling up on a larger volume of things that aren't stimulating a huge insulin response, you're also increasing your intake of fiber, which is helping your gut health, which helps your, you know, insulin secretion, insulin response, and then you're increasing fruits and vegetables or your like vitamins and minerals, which also helps your blood sugar response. So. If you're listening to this and you've been not eating fruit because you think it makes you fat, please eat more fruit, please eat just more whole foods.

Baylee:

it's actually gonna help with the weight loss because. The fiber keeping you fuller. Chewing your fruit takes some time. It has a low glycemic load. It has antioxidants to reduce inflammation. You're replacing processed foods, and I mean, some fruits have even been shown to have appetite regulating effects, decreasing that appetite a little bit. You, you can't go wrong here. The problem isn't fruit.

Brianna:

No.

Baylee:

When fruit can seem like it's making you add weight, is because are you doing dried fruit and juices that are just like higher chloric density? They're easier to overeat. A lot of times they also have added sugar,

Brianna:

Yeah.

Baylee:

Fruit's. Great. You wanna eat fruit. It has lots of benefits. It's all about how are we being strategic with it? And don't get, get caught up Like we've always known fruits and vegetables are the way to go. Like there's no arguing that, so don't second guess yourself on the fruit. Eat the dang blueberries.

Brianna:

again, it's just that shock factor of like some random point being like, yeah, did you know that this is the problem? And everyone's like, oh my God, I'm never eating strawberries again because it's so high in sugar. I'm like, weird. That's the type of fuel your body wants, like

Baylee:

Yes,

Brianna:

carbohydrates is, its fuel, but like Whole Foods. I just, I can't, if you have a doctor that's telling you don't eat like fruits and vegetables, I suggest you either work with a dietician or, and, or get a different doctor because that is just horrible advice.

Baylee:

Yes.

Brianna:

So, you know,

Baylee:

Kiwis are great too, by the way. Not just berries, lots of fruits. We always just go for the berries. But everyone, I hope this episode was very helpful. Short, sweet, to the point that sweet guys are loving lately. So we've been, we've been diving into that. Last week was a little bit longer, so this week we got a little shorter one for you.

Brianna:

Yeah, and I guess if you want like the nitty gritty science, metabolism class of how fructose and glucose is absorbed differently, you can let us know and we can tell you that, but if not, we won't bore you with things that we have PTSD from.

Baylee:

Yes, rest of everyone.

Brianna:

Bye.

People on this episode

Contributor

Baylee

Host
Contributor

Brianna

Host