The Fruitarian Diet

image credit: flickr

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.