Fruit consumption - is there a limit?

[AmandaSue]

Hi! I have seen conflicting information regarding fruit consumption, and I'm not sure where MWL guidelines land. I was under the assumption when I started (just 2 weeks ago...total newbie!) that the recommendation was 2 pieces of fruit a day, but per the guidelines we are recommended to potentially eat fruit before a meal and/or after a meal, which would obviously push the limit upwards of 6 pieces/servings of fruit per day.

Thank you for any help or clarification!

[Mark Cooper]

This came up earlier this year and in the MWL group thread this month; hopefully the excerpts of that discussion quoted below will help to clarify things for you.

As far as the 10-point checklist:
#1-I don't start my meals with soup, salad, or fruit. This guideline goes against the 2 servings/day of fruit a day, so it's confusing to me. If we ate a piece of fruit before each of three meals and then also for dessert, we would be eating 4 fruits/day. I often just eat soup and/or a salad, so this guideline seems strange to me. Maybe I'll revisit this one too when/if weight loss becomes an issue.

When I first wrote the guideline it was “start your meal with soup and/or salad” but I added in fruit for 2 reasons.

1) studies came out showing the same/similar impact of a pre-load of fruit as with soup or salad on overall caloric intake.

2) I got a lot of questions about whether the “soup or salad” included breakfast or not as for many, soup or salad for breakfast was not typical. Adding in “fruit” solved that problem as it was much more common for people to start with fruit or to have it with breakfast and (as per #1) the evidence supported it.

Either way, it is only a guideline and an option for you. You could easily start breakfast with fruit and have soup/salad for lunch and dinner and you are still within all guidelines.

Some like to start meals with fruit and some like soup and some salad and some soup and salad. When I was growing up, my mom usually served fruit before dinner each nite. Others like to have it for dessert as it solves the “what’s for dessert” question.


Hope that helps

In Health
Jeff

Jeff provides some background for the limit on fruit as part of this discussion.

I wouldn't want to guess from a distance without more details about you or your lifestyle and diet or longterm results, (as all new tweeks work for a few days/weeks) but remember, the MWL limits fruit to 2 a day

If you asked Dr McDougall why, he would say because he has witnessed the situation many times amongst patients. If this is an issue for you, I would recommend staying within his guidelines.

I have my own theories but will choose not to was philosophical today.

Remember the discussion on whole grain pasta and tortilla's?

https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/view ... 1&#p591201

In the end, if someone has a tendency to overeat on a MWL approved food, then switch it for another one but don't not eat if one is truly hungry. For some people it may be grapes and bananas or even brown rice, but not apples, grapefruit or potatoes.

Speaking personally, I would evaluate an extra piece of fruit within the framework of my overall dietary pattern - am I eating 3 servings of fruit, or 10? Am I eating the whole fruit in a minimally processed form? Am I using that fruit to satisfy hunger, or am I "stuffing in" an extra apple after dinner even though I'm not hungry? Speaking for myself, I do often consume 3 fruits in a day, but I don't eat nice cream (it tastes a little "too good" to me and has led to overconsumption in the past), and I tend to avoid bananas generally because I find it easy to eat them past the point of satiety. I write that not to recommend those specific practices to anyone else, but as a way of illustrating the perspective I use to weigh my choices.

I think the questions arising this week in relation to fruit perhaps might benefit from further discussion. Clearly, Dr. McDougall has sufficient experience with patients who need to pay attention to their fruit consumption; hence the advice to minimize fruits is included in the MWL guidelines.

Keep fruits to one or two a day. Fruit is largely simple sugar and people can easily eat 10 to 20 servings a day without a guilty thought – after all, fruit is healthy. In truth, fruits should be thought of as healthy desserts, made largely of sugar and water (but with lots of wholesome nutrients). Vegetable juices (carrot, celery, tomato, etc.) are only slightly less detrimental to your weight loss than fruit juices. Dried fruits are even bigger "calorie bombs." They are concentrated into a small volume by the dehydration processes, so you can eat 20 dried apples in the time it would take you to eat 2 whole fresh apples.

Let me be clear - I don't disagree with any aspect of that guideline. I do, however, think our group discussion can be aided by some nuance and perspective. I can imagine that overconsumption of fruit may very well be an issue for some of us, and I don't want to discourage anyone from being honest with themselves and attending to that. In that same spirit, I would ask that we all take a thorough, informed and honest look at our adherence to all 10 points of the MWL 10-Point Checklist. Practicing this way of eating requires a significant expenditure of dedicated effort, and it feels important to me that we direct our efforts where they can provide the most leverage. Are calorie-dense and highly processed foods still making an appearance among your food choices? What about animal foods? Or high-fat plant foods? Have you been drinking your calories? Again, I point this out not to discourage anyone from giving needed attention to their fruit intake, but out of concern that some of us may be fretting about cherries or apples, while still consuming cookies, crackers, cake, &c. In regard to more calorie dilute foods, I think Jeff made a very important point in this thread; one worth generally keeping in mind.

In the end, if someone has a tendency to overeat on a MWL approved food, then switch it for another one but don't not eat if one is truly hungry. For some people it may be grapes and bananas or even brown rice, but not apples, grapefruit or potatoes.

As always, do the best you can to be totally honest with yourself about your current efforts and what you are capable of achieving. Think about your overall pattern of behavior, and whether it is congruent with your personal goals. Ultimately, we are all working to build a way of life for ourselves - a way of life that supports our health and well-being, and that bolsters our energy, enthusiasm, and happiness. If we are fortunate, we can inhabit that wonderful way of life for the longest duration of time possible. Developing a broad understanding of the concepts we discuss here can seem daunting and involved, as illustrated in this discussion of satiety and calorie density.

It is important to always discuss satiety per calorie so we always have an equal/standardized comparison and in regard to short term (~1 hour) vs long term (~3-4 hours) satiety. While fruits and veggies have high short term satiety, they don’t have high long term satiety

Water as part of food is included as in soups, oatmeal etc. where as liquid calories as in juice, non-dairy milk isn’t.

There are many factors to satiety that are more like finer details such as chewing, fiber/kcal, %fat, texture, degree of processing etc that matter when comparing foods of equal or similar calorie density.

If some of you are interested in taking a "deep dive" into the numerous interesting and complicated factors that contribute to Passive Overconsumption: The Unintended Intake of Excess Calories, I highly recommend the following threads:

Finding The Sweet Spot: Balancing Calorie Density, Nutrient Density & Satiety
Question about Ramen noodles?
3-5 lbs of food a day?
food really unlimited??

The Jeff Novick, RD subforum is filled with fascinating and valuable information on a seemingly infinite number of topics, and the answers to many questions are contained therein.

[AmandaSue]

Thank you Mark! This is so helpful to me! I really appreciate you taking the time to provide all that information. Thank you so much!