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The term fruitarian is new to me. When I think of fruitarian, I immediately think of the raw food diet as well. A general definition of a fruitarian is someone who eats raw fruit as a bulk of their diet. The fruits included are more than what grows on trees. There are many types of fruits that most people don’t realize are actually fruit such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. Many fruitarians also include green leafy vegetables or root plants in their diet. This makes up for an all around nutritious type of diet.

One of the great benefits of the fruitarian diet is that there is a lot less processing our bodies need to do compared to other foods. It takes much longer for our bodies to break down meat compared to eating fruits and vegetables. That is the reason why many meat eaters who don’t take in enough fiber tend to have infrequent bowel movements and suffer from constipation.

The fruitarian diet doesn’t come without its criticisms. The most common include:

• Hunger
• Sugar content
• Not satisfying

I would suspect that the hunger issue could be resolved by eating 5 to 6 small meals per day and since there are other fruits that aren’t sweet, a bulk of the diet could be made up of these to reduce the sugar content.

Being a meat eater myself, I can understand why the fruitarian diet wouldn’t seem satisfying. However, just like any lifestyle change, it would take some adjusting to. Once devoted to the diet, I’m sure being satisfied would cease to be an issue.

I feel this lifestyle is a great example of eating clean if you are a non meat eater. In fact, I think this diet is very similar to the vegan, vegetarian, and raw food lifestyles.

image credit: jordan fischer

Wheatgrass can be found in almost any juice shop or sometimes it is carried fresh in the local supermarkets. I have yet to try it myself but I have always heard positive things about it healthwise.

Wheatgrass is known to have many benefits. It is the young grass of the common wheat plant. It is most commonly consumed after being juiced. If you’re not a big veggie eater you may like to know that 1 ounce of wheatgrass is the equivalent of 2.2 lbs of green vegetables.

Wheatgrass health claims:

• improve the digestive system
• prevent cancer, diabetes and heart disease
• cure constipation
• detoxify heavy metals from the bloodstream
• cleanse the liver
• prevent hair loss
• help make menopause more manageable
• promote general wellbeing.

Wheatgrass vitamins and nutrients

When you drink fresh wheatgrass you are getting a dose of vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and K.  You’re also getting calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, sulfur, cobalt, zinc, and protein.  Sounds really good to me!

You can drink it as a shot with a orange slice chaser or mixed in with fruit juice. I’ve heard that the taste ranges from tolerable to terrible. I’m pretty curious myself so I plan on trying it out sometime in the near future.

Milk is marketed as a good source of calcium and a great drink when it comes to losing weight or for getting more protein.  While it can have benefits, now a days, drinking milk can be more harmful to your health than back in the day.  This is mainly due to the harmful growth hormones and drugs which are now often injected into cattle.

Have you noticed some milk in the supermarkets labeled “rBGH free” or as coming from hormone free cows?  I have also and since I still consume milk for cereal and use for cooking, it is the one that I choose over others for sale.

The Dangers of rBGH

rBGH stands for: recombinant bovine growth hormone.  This hormone is injected into cattle for the purpose of increasing milk production.  Unfortunately, these hormone injections also lead to utter infections that in turn require antibiotic treatments.  Now to really gross you out, these drugs and infectious white blood cells (better known as pus) that are due to the infected utters can leak into the milk.  Both drugs and pus can survive the pasteurization process.  Yum right?

Simply put, these drugs and hormones don’t belong in our bodies.  There are other alternatives to milk such as soy milk, almond milk, or rice milk.  You can find these in your local health food stores.  After learning more about this myself, I am making the switch to a healthier alternative.

You can read more in depth about the possible milk dangers below:

Should You Drink Milk?

Fat is one of the first things that is cut from a diet when someone decides to “eat clean.” However, not all fats should be banned or reduced. After all, our bodies can’t function properly without some fat. It’s important to know which fats are good and which are bad in terms of our cholesterol levels.

All fats are not created equal

Saturated fat should be greatly reduced. This fat can elevate your LDL or “bad” cholesterol levels. Saturated fats can be found in foods such as red meat, butter, cheese, palm oil, and coconut oil. Trans fats are just as bad in terms of cholesterol and being that it is a man-made product, should be avoided all together. You can find trans fats in just about all processed foods (baked goods, chips, fast food, etc.)

Healthier oils and their fat content

Good fats that are heart-healthy are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. They help to lower your LDL (bad choleserol) and increase your HDL (good cholesterol.) You can find monounsaturated fats in olive, canola, and nut oils. Polyunsaturated can be found in fish, corn, soy, sunflower, and safflower oils.

If you are a meat eater don’t stress too much about the saturated fat content. Just make better choices such as selecting leaner cuts and trimming the fat when possible. Remove the skin from poultry products as well. Choose low-fat dairy and avoid deep-fried foods. Using common sense when eating out will make avoiding the bad fats a lot easier.

I just read a very interesting article about waste products being sold as health products. Supplements aren’t requirements to good health but many health-conscious individuals will include certain supplements in their diet for specific reasons. I take flax seed oil everyday because it clears up my eczema. Before I discovered flax seed I was using dangerous prescription creams that only cleared it up temporarily. Flax seed oil does wonders for my skin and I will continue to take it.

Others consume supplements like whey protein (very popular), creatine, and cod liver oil just to name a few. My grandmother used to make me take cod liver oil as a kid (the liquid kind) with a spoonful of peanut butter to wash it down with - disgusting! Getting back to the article, I was surprised by whey and creatine, two very popular supplements on the market today:

Whey Protein

Another serious toxic byproduct is whey protein, a byproduct of the dairy industry. Whey is milk protein that is discarded from the production of cow milk, a serious toxin to the human body. You can commonly find whey protein in your commercial brand health food stores and local gyms and fitness centers. The dairy industry targets athletes for their whey protein byproduct; perhaps figuring athletes generally are not the brightest individuals. Regardless, whey protein has no business in the human body. It is a waste byproduct and toxin to the human body. Beware of all those protein bars and beverages containing whey. The dairy industry, like all other byproduct waste industries, are using people as trash dumpsters and canisters to rid itself of waste that would otherwise cost it millions of dollars to dispose of. [Source: dherbs.com]

CREATINE

This crap is derived from pig blood and pig brain and muscle tissue in some cases. Pigs are a great source of steroids and other things that bulk up the body. This is why Creatine is a favorite product of bodybuilders; many of who will do almost anything for the desired muscularly built and toned body. [Source: dherbs.com]

Of course doing your own research is always good because you should form your own opinions when it comes to what you put into your body. However, I did find this article really enlightening. You can read the entire article below:

Beware of Waste Products Sold as Health Products

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.