Is A Fruit Only Diet Dangerous?
Today is my 33rd day on Mango Island. This means I am only eating mangoes at the moment.
This was not a set out plan, but something that naturally evolved and day by day I choose to make a decision to keep going if I am happy with it.
Usually, I don’t recommend that anyone does anything too extreme like a juice fast, juice cleanse or a mono diet as it seems to me that few people that try these things out ever learn to stick to a raw vegan diet that they enjoy over a long period of time.
Many people try fasting, detoxification and cleansing and end up going back to junk food again and going right back to square one.
I am much more interested in creating a lifestyle that is something that people can follow long term.
A mono diet never appealed to me and was not something I aspired to. I do not see it as a “higher level” of healing and detoxification. Nor is it a purer, more natural, more ethical or cleaner diet to me.
Honestly, I believe the key to healing on this lifestyle is to stay to a strict raw diet, salt free, for a long period of time. Rather than doing a 30 day fast or 6 month juice fast. How about you learn to eat this lifestyle and enjoy it to the full first?
But the other thing that makes me want to continue on the mono diet is that it concerns me that more and more people in this movement want to convince people that eating just fruit (for any period of time) is a risky thing to do health wise.
They may be telling you that you must have vegetables for certain nutrients (especially minerals). Even worse, they may be telling you that you need to take supplements as fruits and vegetables both don’t have the nutrition they need any more (using the old soil degradation myth, a fairy story concocted by the supplement industry over 100 years ago).
Many people may also tell you anecdotes of how they “feel better when they eat vegetables”, but that is just an opinion and could be a placebo or nocebo effect (in which the belief that something is unhealthy will make a person convince themselves they don’t feel well)
One person said to me “why do you call it a Fruitfest, when eating just fruit is dangerous”. Firstly, we don’t tell people to eat just fruit, but it seems like it is the food that most people don’t eat enough of.
In the raw food movement eating TOO LITTLE fruit is far more dangerous than eating too little vegetables. In fact a vegetable only diet would most likely be deficient in THE MOST IMPORTANT nutrient of all: calories.
A diet of leafy greens would be so deficient in calories that people would go downhill very quickly on it. The fruits are the true essential part of the raw diet as they supply our body with the calories it requires in the form that it is best suited for.
Human beings are frugivores, our bodies indicate that we are best adapted for a fruit diet. This is the message we must get out there.
The idea that a frugivore should be worried if for a period of time they eat only fruit is silly. When at the same time we see people eating complete junk food diets and never suffering from a mineral or vitamin deficiency.
Where are all the mineral deficiencies? On what diet do they happen? What about all of the vitamin deficiencies that have existed? Universally, these situations happened on diets that had no fruit or limited quantities of fruit. When has their ever been a case of a fruit eating community heading into major dietary deficiency?
People sometimes tell me “I don’t like fruit, I prefer vegetables”
Sorry, but for optimal health you will have to start a new and positive relationship with fruit. Which would be easier if you cut out the vegan ice cream, the chocolate and the sweetened beverages (while at the same time claiming “I don’t have a sweet tooth”)
Fruit is the food we should focus on. Eat other raw vegan foods for enjoyment, but fruit is where you will be getting the far majority of your nutrition.
Let’s stop the fear around fruit. Let’s stop thinking that just because it is sweet and delicious that it can’t also have plenty of nutrition.
Leave a comment below letting me know what you think of this article and share it with someone that might like to read it.
Have a great day!
Ronnie Smith
UK Fruitfest
Today is my 33rd day on Mango Island. This means I am only eating mangoes at the moment. This was not a set out plan, but something that naturally evolved and day by day I choose to make a decision to keep going if I am happy with it. Usually, I don’t recommend that anyone…
Nice read
The only thing missing here is sharing how you actually feel on your 30+ mango only diet.
I can tell that at times when i did a single fruit diet without any veggies it actually felt quite bad after a while, my well-being went downhill, and I also craved vegetables badly.
I do suspect that it was contributed by the fruit quality, but in one of those times i was actually in a mango farm. Could’ve been other factors too, idk.
most likely not eating enough calories was an issue, did you lose weight?
I am having fruits only diet and using my body as an experiment board. I’ve been a raw vegan fruitarian for over 12 years during last 5 decades. I’ve been vegetarian for 20 years, lacto fruitarian for 10 years. But my actual goal is; to be 100% fruitarian. My first trial for this has started on June, 2015 and ended Nov, 2015. It’s just lasted for 5 months. The reason I couldn’t go on was keep losing weight and lack of energy. I’ve returned to raw vegan fruitarian diet again. My second trial has started late August, 2019 and ended late Jan., 2020. This one also lasted 5 months. This time my energy was okay but I couldn’t stop losing weight. My third trial has just started on March, 29th, 2020 and keep going today. This time I eat more bananas and dates, less watery fruits. I was eating very few bananas on my previous trials and not so much dates. If I can keep my body weight in balance I’ll keep this diet permanently. Meantime I take B12 supplement regularly, since a deficiency I’ve experienced in 1982.
regardless of diet, if you are losing weight you need to add in more calories