5 Minute Facts - Fruit

This is episode 124 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, vitality and peak performance coach, Kari Schneider.

Okay, so we're going to start with fruit. Really quickly. I'm going to give you just a quick, quick snapshot on fruit because I've gotten a few questions on this. A couple people asked questions on fruit. And so in that, I'm going to.

Address some of these.

First of all, I think all of you know not all fruits are created equal. So here's our fruit bowl. Not the banana, not the apple, not the orange, not the avocado. They are not equal. If I'm going to pick something, it's going to be the really dark colored berries, it's going to be the really fibrous fruits or it's going to be the really nutrient dense fruits. So those are going to be the avocados, the blueberries, the acai berries, the raspberries. All of those things are going to be your top picks. Something like a mango, a banana, an apple. You're going to get a lower nutrient density and a higher sugar level than you would with some of the berries that you're looking at. So those would be some of the things that you want to consider in your fruit. Secondly, choose the whole fruit. I think you all know this. However, I can't express enough how it's a waste of your time and your energy and your money to have things like fruit juices over the whole fruit. So choose the whole fruit first. That's going to be your second fruit rule overall. And I am really hesitant to give food rules because food is not something that we are all about the rules on food. But these are the things for your best health. And in here, we are all about the best health. That is what we want. This third one is pre meal. So most of us don't think of having a fruit before our meal. But here is where the research is and I can show you graphics on this and fullness and some of our hormone things. But here is where the research is. If you take an apple and have an apple about an hour, anywhere between an hour to 30 minutes before a meal, people who consume that apple first will be less likely to overeat on that meal. Now, there's some reasons behind that, but it has to do with the fiber, it has to do with some satiations and the hormones. It has to do with the hormones that are released on some of the fullness. But a fruit, one fruit does better than a glass of water, than does better than nothing. And so people have a better nutrient intake with their meal if they've had a fruit about half an hour or an hour before their meal. Okay, next one. Know your dirty dozen and your clean 15. Fruits are notorious for being sprayed. Fruits will get all kinds of pesticide, herbicide sprays. So. So there is a list every single year that comes out with a dirty dozen. The dirty dozen are the particular fruits that will be the ones that have the most spray, the most herbicide, the most pesticide, most of everything on it. And the ones that are the clean 15 are the ones that have the least. So ideally, you're buying all organic fruit and if you can't, then you're buying maybe something that's on the clean 15 or you're washing judiciously like crazy. And then lastly, consider fruit as like nature's dessert. This is the thing that we can consume that is made for us as creatures. If you think of us as creatures instead of humans in sterile environments, think of us as creatures within the world. We. Well, this was designed to be the thing that we want to eat and satisfy our sugar cravings. This is exactly what that is as long as it's not massively genetically modified and turned into some blueberry that's the size of a grape and an apple that's the size of a grapefruit because they're not meant to be that size. So those are also things to consider. So nature's dessert there dirty dozen, clean 15, that's the environmental working group. They come up with that through research every single year. And it changes. Typically the top on there are strawberries or apples high on the meaning when I say top, I mean they have the most pesticides and herbicides, strawberries and apples. So those are the ones you really want to make sure you buy organic or have or have them washed really well if they're not organic.

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