Fruit - C or D?

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In the UK there's a big campaign to persuade people that eating five portions a day of fruit and vegetables is essential as part of a healthy diet. Currently only 13% of men and 15% of women eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

One study found that increasing fruit consumption by 50 g (about half an apple) each day might reduce risk of premature death by a massive 20 per cent.

It seems very simple. The odds suggest eating fruit may be second only to giving up ciggies in the keeping you alive a bit longer stakes. And it's pretty tasty. So why aren't people eating more of it?

― James Ball (James Ball), Thursday, 23 January 2003 16:48 (twenty-three years ago)

They've been trying that for years in the States. Unfortunately, we all prefer Twinkies.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 23 January 2003 16:52 (twenty-three years ago)

It's very difficult to buy a single piece of fruit as a snack, newsagents don't stock it so it's easier to munch chocolate, no?

― smee (smee), Thursday, 23 January 2003 16:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Oranges are the only fruit.

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:00 (twenty-three years ago)

FRUIT IS DISGUSTING!!!!!!!!!!!!

― Mike Hanle y (mike), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Classic!

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:03 (twenty-three years ago)

I always thought Twinkies were one of the major food groups in the States, Ned.

― James Ball (James Ball), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Don't forget to push on your fruit to make sure its ripe.

― Chris V. (Chris V), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Heed my Fruitwa! Shun all fruit!

(apart from grapefruit. and liquified fruit)

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:28 (twenty-three years ago)

I am baking apples.

― Anna (Anna), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:33 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm addicted to those Odwalla juices (my faves are the green Good Food or whatever things and then the Protein ones, although the Anti-Oxident is good as well). They're expensive but the equivalent to eating like a pound of fruit or something and taste fantastic and make me feel great. And they're kind of like in the future where we can just take food pills!

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:48 (twenty-three years ago)

I like fruit but it's not really comfort food is it?

― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 23 January 2003 17:49 (twenty-three years ago)

I like orange juice and strawberry youghart.

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 23 January 2003 19:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Zingers! They're like Twinkies, only with strawberry.. stuff.. and coconut on the outside. That counts as two fruits, right?

― luna (luna.c), Thursday, 23 January 2003 19:12 (twenty-three years ago)

kumquats

― gygax!, Thursday, 23 January 2003 19:13 (twenty-three years ago)

hey jel, is there anything we DONT have in common?

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 23 January 2003 19:13 (twenty-three years ago)

It's extremely easy to buy a single item of fruit, in most areas. Try a greengrocer or supermarket.

My doctor quoted this thing that you should eat five portions of fruit a day. I asked him what constituted a portion. Any item of fruit, he said. What, like a grape or a watermelon, I asked. Yes, he said.

I probably eat 2-3 portions a day.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 23 January 2003 19:13 (twenty-three years ago)

My grandmother and I both agreed that raspberries are our favourite fruit. I don't eat 5 portions a day, though.

― Mark C (Mark C), Thursday, 23 January 2003 20:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Don't forget Tomatoes and Eggplant are really fruits.

― brg30 (brg30), Thursday, 23 January 2003 20:07 (twenty-three years ago)

I love raspberries... and blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, pineapple, green apples, green grapes, cherries, watermelon, canteloupe... nearly everything, really.

― luna (luna.c), Thursday, 23 January 2003 20:12 (twenty-three years ago)

All fruit = classic.

Being allergic to it = dud.

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 23 January 2003 20:22 (twenty-three years ago)

It's very difficult to buy a single piece of fruit as a snack, newsagents don't stock it so it's easier to munch chocolate, no?

What about raisins?

One benefit of when I worked downtown: the hot dog and other food vendors usually had fruit available next to the chips and cookies and other unhealthy temptations.

― j.lu (j.lu), Thursday, 23 January 2003 20:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Inspired by this thread I bought some black grapes on the way home from work. Num num.

Oh - and some *fruity* Jelly Tots.

― Lara (Lara), Thursday, 23 January 2003 20:35 (twenty-three years ago)

I like fruit best when its all cut into pieces, and there are no cores, pips etc. to deal with. My grandfather used to keep a little knife in his trouser pocket which he would use to cut slices from apples and those little bites were always much nicer than a whole apple could ever be.

― estela, Thursday, 23 January 2003 21:24 (twenty-three years ago)

With the exception of Grapes I appear to be allergic to all the fruits I like. Grapes are expensive.
Vegetables are pretty cool though. Especially spinach. I buy the frozen cubes and put a few in any pasta or curry.

A "portion" of fruit is about a handful apparently.

― Celeste (Celeste), Thursday, 23 January 2003 21:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, that is what non-idiots say: they usually suggest that an apple or orange or pear or banana are a sensible portion.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 23 January 2003 21:53 (twenty-three years ago)

peahces are like little monkey hardbodies

― zemko (bob), Thursday, 23 January 2003 22:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Martin, 5 portions (which sounds like the US serving) is a *lot*, considering that the Amurkin FDA sez people should get 2-3 a day.

Strawberries are my top favorites, but I almost never eat them because I don't feel that their nutritional value should displace something else, like ~~prunes~~ dried plums* or oranges. I like almost all citrus fruits, watermelon, and also the ever exotic STAR FRUIT.

*Strange that I have zero problems eating dried plums but dried grapes are icky.

― Leee (Leee), Thursday, 23 January 2003 22:43 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah, 5 portions sounds like a lot. but if they're a substitute for vegetables it's great.

i love fruits. really love them. they're just annoying to eat because they tend to spurt juice everywhere sometimes.

― Maria (Maria), Thursday, 23 January 2003 22:51 (twenty-three years ago)

I love raspberries the most. Especially when they are big enough you can disinvolve the individual drupelets.

I'm not too keen on bananas, except in their natural format. When they're used in smoothies, for example, the potassiumy element makes it taste synthetic.

Has anyone tasted the 'king of fruits', the durian?

― Alfie (Alfie), Thursday, 23 January 2003 23:35 (twenty-three years ago)

It's very difficult to buy a single piece of fruit as a snack, newsagents don't stock it so it's easier to munch chocolate, no?

There's a convenince store near my house that sells small boxes of dried fruit (not just raisins, either) at the counter. I always buy some when I go in. Yum.

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo (cindigo), Thursday, 23 January 2003 23:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Alfie: no, but it plays a part in the last novel I finished, Tanner On Ice by Lawrence Block. A character is imprisoned in Burma/Myanmar after eating it in his hotel room - apparently the smell is as disgusting as the taste is delicious.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 23 January 2003 23:43 (twenty-three years ago)

I eat a green apple every morning. Love em. I also eat the seeds, imagining them as some sort of superfood when actually all I know about them is they contain trace amounts of cyanide.

I hear strawberries are the greatest of all fruits (nutritionally) but it's too hard to find good ones and then you have to wash them carefully, how laborious.

― Aaron A., Friday, 24 January 2003 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

better get a banana while you can, they're going extinct. amazing fact nearly all bananas are genetically identical to the first cultivated edible banana from 10,000 years ago in southeast asia since edible bananas are rare in nature and are sterile. i'll miss the banana.

― keith (keithmcl), Friday, 24 January 2003 00:08 (twenty-three years ago)

better get a banana while you can, they're going extinct.

Tell me more. Where'd you hear this?

Silkworms (at least the kind that produce regular silk) are extinct in nature too, but they're not about to vanish from the earth.

amazing fact nearly all bananas are genetically identical to the first cultivated edible banana from 10,000 years ago in southeast asia since edible bananas are rare in nature and are sterile.

They also have hard seeds the size of peas.

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo (cindigo), Friday, 24 January 2003 00:15 (twenty-three years ago)

I try to get my daily requirements (er, according to the U.S. dietary advisors) of fruit through fruit salad, frozen fruits used in morning shakes (tofu, frozen strawberries/raspberries/peaches/etc., banana, splash of milk, sugar or honey) - easy on the stomach and can drink on way to the job, and by using fruits in desserts (fruit pies, fresh fruit on ice cream or yogurt, fruit crisps/crumbles, fruit tarts, fruit meringues, baked apples/pears, strawberries-banana-mandarin oranges dipped in melted chocolate as fruit fondue).

Of course, I'm a fruit and veggie junkie because in my younger years we were too poor to afford fresh fruit and vegetables (except in the summer, from our own garden/trees) so fresh fruit and vegetables became a treat for my sister and myself - and since it was a treat, it's something that we have come to crave. Gee, thanks for this thread - I think I'll make fruit pizza for dinner.

― LCD (Ms Laura), Friday, 24 January 2003 00:17 (twenty-three years ago)

give me peaches.

― di smith (lucylurex), Friday, 24 January 2003 00:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Has anyone tasted the 'king of fruits', the durian?

Dear lord. I've tasted it a couple of times, and I didn't care for it either time. There's one currently rotting in the office refrigerator and I can smell it two halls away at my desk. Bleh.

― luna (luna.c), Friday, 24 January 2003 00:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Fresh fruit is Classic. One of the best things about moving to the South was the increased availability of cheap fresh produce year round (cherries are much more expensive, though -- but they're always good.) I'm a huge citrus fan. I was sick earlier this week and tried to ward it off by eating about a dozen blood oranges and cara cara oranges.

(I've never had durian, because the one friend who'll eat it with me is never here when I can find it fresh, and vice versa: but I've had durian cookies, and grok the general idea.)

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 24 January 2003 00:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Ah durian, the bastard fruit of the goddamned to hell.

http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~durian/img/durian.jpg

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 24 January 2003 01:52 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah, 5 portions sounds like a lot. but if they're a substitute for vegetables it's great.

How are they defining "portion"? The U.S. FDA recommends 6-11 servings of grain products per day, defining 1 average slice of bread as one of those servings.

― j.lu (j.lu), Friday, 24 January 2003 02:55 (twenty-three years ago)

11 slices of bread? i'd be on the toilet all night

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 24 January 2003 02:56 (twenty-three years ago)

whats the best fruit? forbidden fruit!

― di smith (lucylurex), Friday, 24 January 2003 02:57 (twenty-three years ago)

As for durians, a guy I worked with back at the World Bank has a story of bringing a durian back to his hotel room and stinking out the whole building when the smell got into the ventilation.

I see durians in the Asian markets, and would like to try one, but a whole durian has got to be too much for one person, considering that I wouldn't want to keep the leftovers in my kitchen. Perhaps when the weather is better the Washington-area ILXors might try a FAD (Fancy a Durian).

― j.lu (j.lu), Friday, 24 January 2003 02:59 (twenty-three years ago)

I had durian ice cream once from that Chinese candy shop in San Francisco and it wasn't that bad, mostly because it was ice cream and you couldn't really smell it. It wasn't any great shakes either, though, I don't recommend it to anybody.

― Millar (Millar), Friday, 24 January 2003 03:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Blood oranges are in season, I just got a whole bag of them at the market. They are the best (and are the fruit of choice for the goths).

― Nicole (Nicole), Friday, 24 January 2003 04:55 (twenty-three years ago)

http://www.5aday.com/images/industry/5ADlogotmb_color.gif

apparently now just 5 a day isn't enough; now they want you to eat at least one of five different color groups.

number of fruit and vegetable servings i've eaten today: 0

if only i had read this thread sooner my nutritional day might have been saved. . .

― That Girl (thatgirl), Friday, 24 January 2003 05:08 (twenty-three years ago)

banana on death row.

doesn't look good for sharks either.

― keith (keithmcl), Friday, 24 January 2003 05:24 (twenty-three years ago)

i have eaten three bananas today. and there are still more bananas.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 24 January 2003 05:25 (twenty-three years ago)

well unless a couple of those nanners were dyed blue or red that doesn't really count now does it jim?

― That Girl (thatgirl), Friday, 24 January 2003 05:26 (twenty-three years ago)

one was sorta brown

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 24 January 2003 05:28 (twenty-three years ago)

On my bag of prunes it sez 5 a day too for all out healthiness, but five individual prunes amounts to one serving.

― Leee (Leee), Friday, 24 January 2003 08:26 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm pleased this thread has inspired more fruit eating. May you all live a bit longer as a result.

― James Ball (James Ball), Friday, 24 January 2003 09:36 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm going to lower the tone and say fear of getting the squits is prolly the reason ppl don't eat as much fruit as the government advisers suggest.

worst fruit: starfruit. wtf? I don't want to eat anything that's sharp.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 24 January 2003 10:10 (twenty-three years ago)

eight months pass...

Speaking of fruit, I recently had someone describe to me, in all serioussness, the process for peeling, halving, and stuffing *grapes*.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 29 September 2003 01:50 (twenty-two years ago)

What? Grapes are perfect all by themselves! Just pluck off the stem, pop into your mouth, and enjoy. Thus says the lazy fruit lover. ;)

I love lots of fruit! I love apples, bananas, grapes, watermelon, peaches, nectarines, cantaloupe, strawberries, and oranges. I think it was about a month ago that I discovered that I could go into a supermarket close to work, purchase a fruit bowl from the produce section, go to where the deli section is, grab some plastic utensils and paper napkins, and eat away. This is heaven!

I love Twinkies too, don't get me wrong. I just can and will fantasize about eating fruit in that same "drool down the chin" sort of manner. In fact, I'm seriously thinking of going down right now to the kitchen, grabbing a portion of watermelon, and inhaling it.

― Legendary Nothingness (Dee the Lurker), Monday, 29 September 2003 02:10 (twenty-two years ago)

About a week ago I bought an apple variety I hadn't heard of called Honeycrisp and they are very good. Tart (not as much as a Granny Smith), sweet, and (not surprising) crisp.

― nickn (nickn), Monday, 29 September 2003 02:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I never eat fruit. Dunno why - I like strawberries, peaches and pears... but I never buy fruit cos i know I'd never eat it.

But I eat loads of vegetables - tomatoes, brocoli, beans, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, pumpkin - so as far as Im concerned thats just as good.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 29 September 2003 02:43 (twenty-two years ago)

the guava is the most nutritious fruit, followed by the watermelon

― jonas lefrel (jonas lefrel), Monday, 29 September 2003 02:57 (twenty-two years ago)

ten months pass...

Fruit is totally classic. I am digging on bananas so much at the moment.

― PinXor (Pinkpanther), Friday, 30 July 2004 09:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I love the soft fruit part of the English summer. Strawberries and rasberries and bluberries and goosberries and apricots and cherries and plums. *sigh*

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 30 July 2004 09:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Mmmmm fruit, it's lovely. I wish that long-ago person above hadn't reminded me of guavas though - it's freaking impossible to get hold of them here and I pretty much lived on them as a kid. Waaaaaaah I want exotic fruit that doesn't seem exotic to me! On the plus side, mangoes are readily available.

Anna, I am making summer pudding today! Hurrah for soft fruits.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Friday, 30 July 2004 09:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Mmmm summer pudding! Raspberries & strawberries totally rule at the moment too.

― PinXor (Pinkpanther), Friday, 30 July 2004 09:20 (twenty-one years ago)

The New Zealand Gala apples I've been picking up lately are devine.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 19:33 (twenty-one years ago)

i'll be eating blueberries for dinner, again, tonight. i have this problem of buying family-sized amounts of things then having to inhale massive quantities before rot sets in.

― lauren (laurenp), Friday, 30 July 2004 19:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know about your grocery, but at mine you can't buy strawberries or blueberries by weight. They're both packaged in clear plastic containers which always contain more than I can eat before spoilage.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 19:48 (twenty-one years ago)

i buy fruit just to watch it spoil on my kitchen counters.

― kephm, Friday, 30 July 2004 19:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I enjoy fruit, but I almost *never* eat it (I do eat alot of veggies though). I've been trying to eat a grapefruit every weekday morning, but I keep forgetting them.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 30 July 2004 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

red grapes seem to get rid of my sinus headaches

― kephm, Friday, 30 July 2004 19:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I eat fruit instead of vegetables a lot of the time. This is because I am lazy and vegetables tend to require cooking or at least some kind of preparation.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 30 July 2004 19:58 (twenty-one years ago)

red grape juice is fantastic.
I ate fresh blueberries for the first time a few days ago (have only had them in yogurt, muffins, etc) and they tasted totally different from what I expected. I thought they'd gush forth with intense juices, but they're more like a mild grape.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to work with a woman who hated fruit, considered it "nasty." Yet, she would eat "anything pork". Bizarrely, and against all reason, she was also completely hawt.

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't like fruit that much, and I'm pretty hot. But I don't eat pork either.

― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I like pork way more than fruit.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 30 July 2004 20:30 (twenty-one years ago)

black grapes!

― lauren (laurenp), Saturday, 31 July 2004 17:30 (twenty-one years ago)

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