When Is the Best Time to Eat Fruit?

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When is the Best Time to Eat Fruit? This is JJ Virgin, four time New.

York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert.

And Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions, and now I'm sharing what I found with you.

Welcome to Ask the Health Expert.

DJ Kwon from Instagram asks, when is the best time to eat fruit? Is it okay to eat fruit right after meals? I am so glad you asked this question. I'm going to attempt to avoid going on a rant about fruit, but stay tuned and I'll give you that answer.

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All right. Oh my gosh, the great fruit debate. You know, it seems so often, and I might have done a, might have done a little rant about this as a podcast that fruit is not free food. You know, way back when, actually not that far. Long ago, maybe 10 years ago, fruit was considered to be the perfect dessert. You could have what you wanted. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. So there's a couple key questions in here, really. Can fruit be a trigger to eat sugar? And when's the best time to eat fruit and how much fruit should you have? I'm gonna throw that all in here in the kitchen sink in this answer. First of all, best time to eat fruit. I like to do a little bit of fruit in my morning smoothie. But I'll tell you what, I like to use either half of a green banana. I love that resistant starch. Or a little bit of berries and cherries. The big thing that you want to watch for in fruit is watch the amount you're eating because it can get really easy to go too far too fast with that fruit. A cup is a serving. All right, So a big fruit bowl can get yourself in trouble and too much fruit is a problem. Yes. If you're one of those people genetically who, when you eat sweet, you want more sweet fruit could be that trigger. But I think for most of us, and if you've gone through the sugar impact diet and you've retrained your taste buds to appreciate the natural sweetness of things like a blueberry. Right. Or some melon, then you're in good shape. And then one or two pieces of fruit a day are going to be great. I think they're great to use in your smoothie. That's one of the places I like to do it. And you could use it after a meal if you want that little sweet after the meal. And I think that's where it's great to do, like some berries and some dark chocolate. That is such a great little yummy combo that you can have. You could even go a little crazy and put that over some so delicious dairy free coconut milk ice cream with one gram of sweetener, then you really got it or make your own. And I think I've got some, I've got some great recipes on my jjvirgin.com website that you can use for that all right, so first time is try having fruit in your smoothie, and then you could have a little bit after a meal. But what I don't want you to do is start thinking fruit is free food. Because here's one thing with fruit. Now, as we know fruit contains fructose. It has both fructose and glucose together. It's not as bad as something like fruit juice or dried fruit, especially apple juice concentrate or syrups or jams that are concentrated in that or agave, which is nearly all fructose. And the challenge with fructose is the more you eat, the better your body is at transporting it straight to the liver, the only organ that can metabolize it, where it's going to be stored as fat if there's not enough room in there to store it as energy, and most likely there's not. So it's going to be stored as fat. So think about it. Most of the time when you're eating fructose, and this is above, like one or two pieces of fruit a day that come packaged with fiber and phytonutrients. I'm talking when you're eating things like agave juice, fruit juice, jams, dried fruit, that kind of stuff, you are going to get an overload of fructose, which can be a problem. And it's super sweet, so it's gonna make you crave more sweet, which we wanna avoid. So again, let's see how you do best times to eat fruit. I like a little bit in my smoothie. I think that's great and I think it is great. A little something something after a meal. If you want that sweet. If you're one of those people that always needs a little something something after a meal, you then I would tell you to go through the sugar impact diet, because I can show you in that program how to go from having a sweet tooth that is controlling you to being able to, you know, take, take, or leave sugar. And believe me, it's sneaking into places you never expected. Within two to three weeks, it can be done, I promise. All right, there you go.

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert.

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