Re: Fibre Question

On Mon, 19 May 2008 20:17:16 -0400, Priscilla Ballou
<vze23t8n@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

There's nothing in fruit that you can't get in non-starchy vegies...
except for a load of sugar.

Nothing?

G'day G'day Priscilla,

When someone uses absolute terms such as "nothing, always, never" a
reflexive module in my brain goes off turning that absolute statement
into a question.

What you say is quite true ... except where it isn't.

Actually it's quite hard to spot why your statement shouldn't be
accepted in its entirety. It is only thanks to the inbuilt reflexes
that I began to suspect some attention needed to be given.

Here is why it so important to tackle the comparison between fruit and
vegetables. What you are saying has a lot of validity. It is the sort
of simple general comment I'd be proud to make. Simplicity leads to
better implementation. The non-starchy vegetables you refer to are a
better investment for most mineral and vitamins than fruit. One could
get all the minerals and vitamins found in fruit from vegetables. IIRC
someone, Alan S perhaps posted a comparison

There are a few things though that don't seem to be supplied in
sufficient quantities in vegetables even though they are the better
performers.

Darn.

Vit E is one of those things. It is the sort of thing that tempts
intelligent well educated people to go out and buy supplements. This
is despite the published evidence suggesting that Vit E supplements
has a small negative impact on life expectancy. They quite rightly
claim that sometimes the quality of research isn't very high so the
reported negative impact might not exist in reality. They happily bet
against the collective evidence out there suggesting supplementing
with Vit E is unwise or at least not wildly beneficial. After
everything they are gambling that the researchers are wrong. Which
ever way you look at it, it's a gamble. Must we take it?

My hypothesis is that it is a risk one need not take provided one
includes some fruit in one diet. Fruit is a good source of
polyphenols. You have met polyphenols when you cut an apple and left
it for a while and it turned brown. That was phenolic compounds being
attacked by the air. The good news is the polyphenols in fruit can
recycle Vit E so that we need less Vit E in our diet ... provided we
have rich flavoured fruit in our diet. The more varied the better.

OK, it is better to have diet which is vegetable based rather than
fruit based. However IMHO it makes sense to include some fruit even
if in the form of damson plum sauce to go on the steaks.

Now let's deal with your last point ... "except for a load of sugar"
The carbohydrate in fruit is mostly sugar. Plants that produce edible
fruit intend them to eaten so their seeds will be carried far and
wide. This however is wasteful in the one currency a plant really
feels, carbohydrate. Spend all morning at the office
photosynthesizing and something comes along expecting a free lunch.

Hmm.

Well the trick is to seduce the animals by providing them with half a
free lunch. Sugar is sweeter than starch. Fructose is sweeter than
glucose. So providing table sugar or its equivalent in a mix of
fructose and glucose is a good trick as far as the plant is concerned.
It takes a very smart animal to realise they're being seduced.
Fructose isn't as good for health as glucose. So first I ought to
congratulate you for recognising that sugar isn't the best ... at
least that is the implication I'm picking up from your comment.
You recognize this fact. There is a lot of truth in it.

However, is there a lot of sugar though in fruit?

IMHO not as much as there appears to be. That's the point of my
describing things from the plants point of view. To the plant that
carbohydrate goes on the cost side of ledger not the profit side.
Survival goes to the most business like plants, those that seduce the
most conveyors of seeds with the least expenditure on carbohydrate.
Put simply, natural selection in plants favors those that provide the
LEAST carbohydrate while seducing the most spreaders of seeds. A
quick count of ASD respondents will quickly assure one that the
strawberries seduction strategy works though how they managed to work
in conjunction with cows producing cream to pull it off is beyond me.
<grin>

Berries fit this description well.

Strawberries taste oh so sweet yet they seduce us with mere 7% of
carbohydrate. So although berries provide mostly sugar they don't
provide loads of it. They simply can't afford to.

I think your generalisation is so good it is worth every new comer and
even us old fogies noting well. IMHO it improves if given a slight
modification.

I don't know about others but I'm proud of how ASD works.

David has learnt that eating fruit is better than drinking fruit
juice. Others lurking out there in cyberspace will have learnt from
him.

Priscilla has directed attention to the primary importance of
vegetables.

I've added a slight modification suggesting that fruit especially
berries that don't subject us to a high carbohydrate load have a place
too.

Best wishes,
--
Quentin Grady ^ ^ /
New Zealand, >#,#< [
/ \ /\
"... and the blind dog was leading."

http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin
.

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