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How Many Fruits Per Day?
How Many Fruits Per Day?
28 Aug 2021
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Is there an upper limit on fruit intake? Is it okay for diabetics to consume fruits when they follow Whole Food Plant-Based guidelines?

Dr Greger

Article: (2017) Can You Eat Too Much Fruit? Excerpts:

An emerging literature has shown that low-dose fructose may actually benefit blood sugar control. Having a piece of fruit with each meal would be expected to lower, not raise the blood sugar response.

Later, he says:

Seventeen people were made to eat 20 servings a day of fruit. Despite the extraordinarily high fructose content of this diet, presumably about 200 g/d—eight cans of soda worth, the investigators reported no adverse effects (and possible benefit actually) for body weight, blood pressure, and insulin and lipid levels after three to six months.

More recently, Jenkins and colleagues put people on about a 20 servings of fruit a day diet for a few weeks and found no adverse effects on weight or blood pressure or triglycerides, and an astounding 38 point drop in LDL cholesterol.

There was one side effect, though. Given the 44 servings of vegetables they had on top of all that fruit, they recorded the largest bowel movements apparently ever documented in a dietary intervention.

Podcast: One Bad Apple is a podcast with interesting podclips.

(2018) How Much Fruit Is Too Much?

(4 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "Does the threshold for toxicity of fructose apply to fruit or just to added industrial sugars such as sucrose and high fructose corn syrup?"

Companion blog article: Can You Eat Too Much Fruit? (2017).

(2021) Lychee Fruit and Hypoglycin: How Many Are Too Many?

(7 mins) Transcript.

(2021) Is Canned Fruit as Healthy?

(5 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "Perhaps dietary guidelines should stress fresh, frozen, and dried fruit — rather than canned."

Companion article: What About Canned Fruit? (2019).

Mastering Diabetes

  • (2021) Why Diabetics Should Eat Fruit by Cyrus Khambatta. Excerpts:

    In most cases, fruits are something you can eat ad libitum, or as much as you want with no risk of long term chronic diseases. In fact, the research shows that they improve your long term health, including as a method of diabetes management and weight loss treatment for obesity. These results have been proven time and time again, and have also been shown to reduce your risk for a number of different conditions.

    Our recommendations for fruits are pretty simple. As long as they’re natural, whole foods, eat them as much as you want, in as large quantities as you want. Whole fruit, fresh fruits, high-fiber fruits like apples and bananas, blackberries, grapefruit, kiwi, dragon fruit — whatever you like!

    In the long, term you’ll see the difference.

    Now, if you have severe insulin resistance or struggle with fluctuating blood glucose, we recommend earning your ability to eat fruits high on the glycemic index by eating a diet containing as much low glycemic plant material as possible for a few weeks first.

    Once you have gained a significant amount of insulin sensitivity, then begin increasing your intake of higher glycemic fruits and your blood glucose is unlikely to spike in the post-meal state.

  • Fruit for Diabetes — Is it Actually Safe to Eat? Excerpts:

    The more fruit our clients with diabetes eat, the more predictable their blood glucose becomes.

    How Much Fruit is Too Much? You may be asking yourself a simple question: if eating fruit is good for you, then how much fruit is too much? Is it possible to overeat on fruit, leading to worsening health, higher A1c values, increased blood pressure, increased risk for heart disease and weight gain?

    In a study performed in 1971, researchers classified the effects of a “mainly fruit diet” to determine what happened to 17 people who ate 20 servings of fruit per day (9). On this regimen, people ate up to 200 grams of fructose per day, the equivalent of 8 cans of soda.

    Researchers found that after 3 to 6 months on a mainly fruit diet, there were no adverse effects, and that body weight, blood pressure and insulin levels began trending down.

    Following up on this research, in 2001 researchers tested the effect of 20 fruits per day on blood lipids and colon function, and found that within the first 2 weeks, total cholesterol dropped significantly (-40.6 mg/dL), as did LDL cholesterol (-37.9 mg/dL) (10). Although in this case it was a short-term study, they also reported zero adverse side effects of a diet packed with fruit.

    Based on this evidence, it appears that there is no upper limit on the amount of fruit you can eat on a daily basis, and that any argument suggesting that fruit contains “too much sugar” is misinterpreting the scientific evidence.

  • (2021) Best Fruits for a Low Carb Diet by Cyrus Khambatta
  • (2019) We Both Have Type 1 Diabetes — and We Eat as Much Fruit as We Want by Curus Khambatta.
  • (2018) Easy-to-Follow Guidelines to Reverse Insulin Resistance by Tara Kemp at Mastering Diabetes shows fruits as a 'green light food'.
  • Dr Khambatta's personal story at Fruit-Powered says:

    Cyrus Khambatta went against mainstream education on diabetes and consumed a high-carbohydrate vegan diet rich in fruits such as mangos. His health has soared on this diet.

Dr Klaper

Dr Klaper is not in favor of limiting fruit intake for weight loss.

Fruit & Weight Loss — Should You Limit Fruit When Trying To Lose Weight?

YouTube video description:

Dr. Klaper makes it clear that 'fruit is your friend if it is whole fruit' and eaten in its whole food form. Fruit is mostly fiber and water which reduces the volume that a person can eat. Hold off on that fruit smoothie though, and watch the video to find out why.

Forks Over Knives

(2015) Is It Possible to Eat Too Much Fruit? This article echoes Dr Greger's writings. Excerpts:

Therefore, the intake of fruit should not be restricted in patients with type 2 diabetes.

According to the Harvard Health Letter, "The nutritional problems of fructose and sugar come when they are added to foods. Fruit, on the other hand, is beneficial in almost any amount."

So What's The Bottom Line? Fresh fruit promotes good health and is an excellent source of calories. So when it comes to nature's candy, feel free to enjoy it in abundance.

Dr Neal Barnard

Go to offset 2:12 for fruit discussion. Excerpts from the video:

Question: How Much Fruit Should You Eat?"

Dr Barnard: How much fruit should a person be eating in a day really depends on how much you want. In other words, there is nothing toxic in fruit such that if you were to eat a little bit more that it would be harmful to you. And if you ate 5, 6, 7, 8, pieces of fruit in a day, they wouldn't harm you.

Our biological cousins, the chimpanzees, probably half their time eating fruits. So it's really not a problem.

Sometimes, people wonder about the sugar that's in fruit. And there are natural sugars that are in fruit. But surprisingly enough, in research studies, when you feed them to research volunteers, you discover that the absorption of the natural sugars in fruits is very slow and steady. It doesn't give you a punch the way — let's say you've had a soda or you ate some sugar by itself, you get a real big spike in your blood sugar. You don't see that with fruit. We call that a low glycemic index. So if you like fruit, have it.

Question: Should a diabetic eating 8 servings a day of fruit be limiting their fruit consumption?

Dr Barnard: I don't think so. I think it's fine to have fruit. I should mention that in the studies that I described earlier where you feed research volunteers various fruits and you see their effect on blood sugar, there are two fruits that stand out spiking blood sugar a little bit more. That's pineapple and watermelon. But both of these have so much water in them, that it's hard to eat a lot of it so that you have a substantial sugar intake.

Question: Are there some fruits that you'd recommend over others? For example, citrus?

Dr Barnard: Thee is a huge variety of fruits. Variety is the best thing. The whole citrus family is great but it's by no means unique. There are a couple of fruits that people don't happen to think as fruits. Those are avocados and olives. They are fattier than most other fruits. So for those, you might want to be careful if you're trying to lose weight or trying to reverse diabetes.

Dr Joel Fuhrman
(3 mins, 2022) How Much Fruit Should You Eat per Day?
(9 mins, 2020) Is Too Much Fruit A Problem?

Only the first 1:43 of this video is about fruit intake.

Dr John McDougall

Fruits and Vegetables says:

Fruits– because they are high in simple sugars – should generally be limited to 3 servings a day as they’re tasty and easy to over-consume. The sugar in fruit is fructose which, for some, causes triglycerides and cholesterol to rise. People with these concerns should limit fruits even more.

(2005) Pushing Your Set Point to the Limits says:

Keep fruits to one or two a day.  Fruit is largely simple sugar and people can easily eat 10 to 20 servings a day without a guilty thought – after all, fruit is healthy.  In truth, fruits should be thought of as healthy desserts, made largely of sugar and water (but with lots of wholesome nutrients). 

Vegetable juices (carrot, celery, tomato, etc.) are only slightly less detrimental to your weight loss than fruit juices. 

Dried fruits are even bigger "calorie bombs."  They are concentrated into a small volume by the dehydration processes, so you can eat 20 dried apples in the time it would take you to eat 2 whole fresh apples.

(4 mins, 2017) Dr McDougall Says Sugar Is Good But Fruit Is Bad?

This video shows pages from Dr McDougall's 'Starch Solution' book where fruit intake and sugar intake are discussed. Also shown is a recipe from the book which actually has granulated sugar (!)

Dr Peter Rogers

Dr Peter Rogers makes fast-paced, information-rich videos! He recommends that we limit our fruit intake unless we are young and working out a lot, just like Mastering Diabetes duo (Robby Babaro and Cyrus Khambatta).

(10 mins, 2021) How To Lose Weight Fast

Fruits are covered for 36 seconds from offset 5:23 to 5:59. Excerpt:

I also recommend when you're in the early phase of weight loss to not even eat any fruits. Okay! I know that fruits are good if you're skinny or an athlete or running a triathlon, you need more calories — fine! eat more fruits! But I think fruits are nature's way of helping an animal get fat before it hibernates for the winter. Now don't get me wrong. If you work out a lot, some people need more calories. The best way to get extra calories is to eat more fruits! But if you're trying to lose weight, fruits — because of the fructose, even though it's packaged with the good stuff — the fiber and the vitamin C, it still has a tendency to make you fatter. It just does.

(15 mins, 2021) What is The Difference Between Plant and Animal Foods

Fruits are covered for 31 seconds from offset 4:04 to 4:35. Excerpt:

Fruits contain fructose in general. And a little bit of fruits are fine. So if you're young and you're a marathon runner or long distance runner or you do triathlons, you got high metabolism, great! Eat lots of fruit! A lot of young guys are real healthy with that. I think those Mastering Diabetes guys — Cyrus and Bobby — are really smart, really good. But they are young! Okay! You can get away with tons of fruit when you're young. When you're older, unless you're training tremendous amounts, you got to be careful with fruits — they make you fat. That's nature's way of making animals get fat.

(7 mins, 2022) Fruits, Fruitarian & Raw Diets
(17 mins, 2023) Fruit & Veggies FAQ
Dr Esselstyn

On Page 71 of his book Prevent And Reverse Heart Disease (320 pages, 2008), Dr Esselstyn says:

"Fruits of all varieties are permitted. A word of caution is in order, however: it is preferable to limit your fruit consumption to three pieces a day (or, for berries and grapes, three servings, each about the size of a modest handful). It is also best to avoid drinking pure fruit juices. Fruit — and juice, especially — carries a avoid drinking pure fruit juices. Fruit — and juice, especially — carries a high sugar content, and consuming too much of it rapidly raises the blood sugar. The body compensates to the sugar high with a surge of insulin from the pancreas — and the insulin, in turn, stimulates the liver to manufacture more cholesterol. It may also elevate triglyceride levels. Be careful of sugar-laden desserts, which can have the same effect."

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