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“Fruit is nature’s candy” The Simpsons

Swedish blogger, Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt, recently reminded me of that Simpson quote when he said, “Fruit is candy.” And he is right.

Have you heard anyone encourage you or others, especially kids, to eat fruits generously but stay away from candy?

Staying away from candy is great advice because candies have a lot of sugars. Many people who encourage us to eat fruit freely do so because they believe that fruit comes from nature and humans have always eaten fruit.

It’s true that humans have always eaten fruit. But the kind of fruit that we have today are giant fruits. Someone from just a few hundred years ago would not believe his eyes if he saw the size of the fruits we have today and how sweet they have become.

How did they get this way? Genetic engineering!

The fruit of today is no ordinary fruit. It is mega fruit or superfruit.

I remember growing up in a farming community. New seed types would sometimes be introduced to farmers that yield fruits many times larger than the previous natural seeds that had been passed down from generation to generation in that community. These fruits would be bigger, sweeter, and also resistant to disease. I remember clearly how a new breed of bananas was brought into our community. And gradually, the smaller natural bananas got replaced with the bigger and sweeter ones.

The goal is always noble. However, these fruits have way more sugar than previous fruits. That’s why they are sweeter.

Eating one small banana a few decades ago might be acceptable. Eating a banana today that is three or four times larger and much sweeter is a totally different thing.

Today’s fruit is truly candy. If you want to lose weight, eat fruit only sparingly.

Here is a great article that points out this problem: Here’s what fruits and vegetables looked like before we domesticated them

Also, see this Time magazine article for some genetically modified foods in the U.S: Time

And: https://jameskennedymonash.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/artificial-vs-natural-peach/

 

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