[hombre_fatal]

Obese people avoiding fruit is one of the biggest eye roll on offer. I had a fat roommate who measured out the raw almonds he ate because they were calorie dense the same day he’d eat two whole pizzas for dinner.

Meanwhile, almonds and bananas aren’t the things making people fat. Looking at my own fat friends, some tasty fruit is the only fiber they even get.

And vegetables aren’t even on the menu of most fat people I’ve lived with. Don’t discourage the only healthy habits people do have.

Look at the the actual diet of an obese / fatty liver / type2 person and you’ll see how silly this advice is. It ain’t the fruit.

[ksdale]

My own anecdote is that my dad was diabetic and he definitely didn't understand how much sugar was in fruit. He did ok controlling his blood sugar, but he considered fruit to be "healthy" and so ate about as much of it as he wanted, which regularly caused blood sugar spikes.

And I know it's not the same thing, but the number of times our small kids get offered juice as a "healthy" option when it's got almost as much sugar as soda... I think it's a real phenomena that certain things have a reputation for being much healthier than they are and it causes problems.

[nextos]

Sadly, as said elsewhere in the thread, many (but not all!) modern fruit varieties have been selected for sugar content.

However, some fruits and vegetables are particularly important for their fiber content even if you can't get rid of the fructose.

Things like inulin or resistant starch are very important to avoid having too many Bacteroides and too few Bifidobacterium, which is one of the big differences in westernized human guts vs more traditional ones.

[jerf]

It wasn't "advice". It's a true statement: Most fruit isn't as healthy as people think it is.

If you've got someone eating an unhealthy diet, but sticking some token fruit in, then that means that even their token nods towards good diet aren't as good as they think, and they should be made aware of that.

[rusk]

Even so they’re getting fibre, vitamins and other micronutrients they wouldn’t otherwise get.

[jjav]

> making people fat

This thread isn't about being fat, it was about gout.

I've never been fat but had plenty of gout attacks. Back when I was getting my worst gout attacks I was in the best shape of my life but the problem was I was consuming too much fructose. From a combination of drinking fruit juices (a single glass can have more than my limit of 10g/day!) and not paying enough attention to sugar content of regular foods. When I finally started adding it all up I was easily reaching 100g of fructose per day.

[tuatoru]

> From a combination of drinking fruit juices and [other stuff] ...

Yes! Juices and smoothies are bad for you. Eat fruit in solid form only, to make your digestive system work harder (as designed), and slow down your rate of calorie ingestion.

It's getting harder and harder to find fruit that hasn't been bred to maximised sugar content, though.

[speeder]

My grandfather was getting obese and had a risk of getting diabetes.

I always assumed he ate healthy food, since he always made an effort for it.

When his medic reviewed all his food choices... the issue was actually fruit, in particular various kind of oranges, my grandpa just loves oranges and will eat them often, several per day.

[Fumtumi]

To add to your very generic statement:

Fruit juice contains a lot of sugar; Oranges contain a lot of sugar;

Make sure you check how much calories you take in regardless of the food.

A good understanding of food healthiness is to understand what you are eating.

[rusk]

The difference between fruit juice and actual fruit is massive. Volume for starters it’s far easier to overconsume juice than whole fruits. Then there’s the matter of the rough fibrous matter being strained out and the glycaemic index ... (EDIT not to mention the various adulterations for shelf life and added sugar and stuff)

It’s far harder to go wrong with whole fruits.

[Fumtumi]

So my statement, you are commenting on, is wrong?

"Make sure you check how much calories you take in regardless of the food."

[rusk]

I was agreeing with you, and reinforcing your point.

It's such a shame our reflex is that if somebody responds to something they must be disagreeing.