I've always wondered about this. And now after reading bits and pieces of things here and there I'm wondering if you eat large portions of fruit or vegetables if they could cause you to be overcompensated in some areas of nutrition and possibly negatively effect your diet.

So what's the real deal? I was always under the impression that since there is 0 fat in raw fruits/vegetables that you could eat as much as you want and not have any negative effects from them. Unless of course you eat too much of one thing and you get a nutrient overload, but that's a different story. I'm talking more about eating a huge salad (with no dressing, just pure veggies) or like a whole apple, whole pear and whole banana in the morning.

I was always under the impression that since there is 0 fat...

First, why do you think fat content is bad?

And what do you see as a possible negative? If you eat too much fruit that will be a lot of calories and sugar and therefore you will get fat. Just like if you ate too many nuts or too much chicken.

However, fruits and veggies kind of regulate their own intake due to their fiber content making you feel satiated if you eat them in large quantities. If I was going to eat large quantities of something, though, it would be green veggies over fruits.

Odd question, as I'm not sure where you are going with this. Are you going vegitarian/fruitarian on us? :)

Just wondering really. Sometimes I feel like eating more so I choose fruits / vegetables because I haven't seen the harm in them.

I suspected what you said about fruits though, that to much will result in excess carbs/sugars and end up helping me to maintain or gain weight. Thanks for clarifying it for me.

Eating a lot of green veggies is a common strategy to keep hunger under control if you are eating a lower volume of food. And it has a lot of benefits in vitamins, antioxidants and other healthy things. So eat up.

Keep fruit in moderation if trying to lose fat IMO.


(And fat isn't inherently bad :))

^ I was also wondering this. Sometimes I just put away strawberries and tomatoes like they are nothing.. So thats good to know.

Of course you could technically eat too many fruits/vegetables, the question is are you? This is definitely a "where are you going with this?" type of question.

Look at things from a calorie/macronutrient density point and it should become pretty obvious where you could possibly get yourself into trouble, and where trouble is hardly ever going to be found.

If you take a regular serving size from a 9 oz bag of spinach salad you'd have about 30 calories. If you go and "accidently" eat the whole bag, you're still barely going to crack 100 calories (with a good deal of fiber) . Now go and try this trick with a bag of potato chips. :)

If a guy that was basically calorie neutral starts eating 3-4 bananas everyday with nothing else changing in the way of activity or the rest of his diet, then he's not likely to stay energy neutral and will start adding weight.

Just commenting on your breakfast, probably 80+% of the calories would be coming from the fruit, and you'd have a rather unbalanced meal in the form of all carbs and nothing else. We'd have to know more about your overall diet and goals to determine if this might be a problem.

Isn't too much fruit kind of bad for your sugar levels? I think some doctors told that to some of my co-workers. Just throwing it out there to see if there is any truth to this.

Isn't too much fruit kind of bad for your sugar levels? I think some doctors told that to some of my co-workers. Just throwing it out there to see if there is any truth to this.

Maybe, but how much is "too much", and how many people are actually doing it? I could be off base, but are there a lot of people eating like 5 bananas everyday?

I'd guess the most common area people would get into trouble with fruit would be too much fruit juice -- that one I could see occuring much more frequently than too many whole pieces of fruit.

Trying to replace snacking habits with too much dried fruit might be another one. The calorie/sugar density is going to add up quick here.

Sure calories count. The only bad thing that comes to mind about fats is they have 9 calories to the gram. Where carbs and protein get away with 4 calories to the gram. Well maybe trans fats are bad for you.

Maybe, but how much is "too much", and how many people are actually doing it? I could be off base, but are there a lot of people eating like 5 bananas everyday?Absolutely. Shortly after I first joined the forums, I was eating a minimum of 5 pieces of fruit every day, and had no problem at all dropping weight regardless. Again, some fruits are better than others. Bananas have a higher sugar content and lower fibre content than other fruits, so they could be more likely to result in weight gain, but I think they're still a lot less likely than bread, pasta, flour, sugar, or any liquid calories, to be a big problem.

Some people are more sensitive to carbohydrates than others. I used to make a huge fruit salad (one apple, one orange, one banana) and eat it for breakfast with a bowl of yogurt. It was very satisfying and filled me up for several hours. But that might not be the case for everyone. Some people might find that such large servings of fruit can mess up their blood sugar levels, or leave them vulnerable to food cravings later in the day.

If you're not already overweight, then I think it's very unlikely that you could eat too many fruits and vegetables. Steve Pavlina did a 30-day raw food diet, which consisted almost entirely of fruits and vegetables. My goal is for 80-90% of my daily calories to come from sweet fruit during this experiment. The rest of my calories will come from raw veggies, non-sweet fruits like tomatoes, and fatty raw foods like nuts, seeds, avocados, and coconut. He has a diary and photos of all of his meal on his site (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/12/30-days-raw/). At the end of the month, he'd lost 8 pounds and dropped 1.8 percentage points in body fat. But I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. :p

Absolutely. Shortly after I first joined the forums, I was eating a minimum of 5 pieces of fruit every day, and had no problem at all dropping weight regardless. Again, some fruits are better than others. Bananas have a higher sugar content and lower fibre content than other fruits, so they could be more likely to result in weight gain, but I think they're still a lot less likely than bread, pasta, flour, sugar, or any liquid calories, to be a big problem.

I'm not sure how a handful of examples would constitute a lot of people, but I think we're basically on the same page here so it's all fine by me. :cool:

I'm definitely not the fruit police. :)

I'm not sure how a handful of examples would constitute a lot of people...
:doh:

No, I don't know for sure if "a lot of people" eat five bananas a day.

I was actually thinking about this campaign:

What's the purpose of the 5-to-10-a-day campaign? (http://www.5to10aday.com/en_about_main.asp)

The goal is to reduce the risk of cancer and cardio-vascular disease, by encouraging Canadians
to consume at least five servings of vegetables and fruit a day as part of a healthy diet (as described in Canada's Food Guide to Healthy Eating), and as part of a healthy lifestyle. The aim of the campaign is not only to create awareness, but also to change people's eating habits, within a healthy, active lifestyle.

If people listen to the campaigns, then there might be a lot of people (Canadians anyway) conveniently omitting the "vegetable" part of that target and eating 5 bananas a day.

Per the DASH diet plan, I eat 4-6 servings of fruit and 4-6 servings of vegetables per day, though I usually end up eating a lot more of each. I know that on days I eat an excess amount of fruit, my weight-loss will slow down a bit, but I really don't care. My family has a history of hypertension, so for me, the health benefits of loading up on fruit is worth a temporary slow-down in my goal of achieving 10% body-fat. I guess it's a good thing there is so much overlap between a healthy body and a nice physique!

The serving sizes from the Canadian food guide are tiny. I think one large apple would be two servings.

I often have at least one pound of fruit and a similar amount of vegetables every day. During the summer when all the good stuff is fresh I have MUCH MORE.

A kilo of tomatoes is mostly water. The same thing with most fruits and vegetables.

If you avoid juice and keep dried fruits down you'd really have to eat 24/7 to get enough calories just to maintain from fruits and vegetables.

Now if you cover everything with whipped cream or cheese sauce then it's not my fault. :lol:

Now if you cover everything with whipped cream or cheese sauce then it's not my fault. :lol:

Nothing inherently wrong with either of those things :eat: I consume a lot of both. :D

Generally not with fruit though.