The winter climate is cold, with yin flourishing and yang declining. Affected by the cold temperature, the body's physiological functions and appetite will change. Therefore, it is essential to adjust your diet reasonably, ensure an adequate supply of essential nutrients, and improve your body's cold resistance and immunity. How can you eat healthily and safely? Our Lifestyle series has specially launched a series of articles on winter diet and health to provide you with customized healthy eating plans for the winter.
Fruits are considered one of the healthiest foods by many, and some people even eat several times more fruit than staple foods. But do you know that there are rules to eating fruit? Otherwise, not only will you fail to achieve health benefits, but you may also develop various diseases.
1. Avoid eating fruit immediately after a meal: Eating fruit right after a meal will not aid digestion; instead, it can cause bloating and constipation. Therefore, it is best to eat fruit 2 hours after a meal or 1 hour before a meal.
2. Avoid eating fruit without rinsing your mouth: Some fruits contain various fermentable sugars that are highly corrosive to teeth. If you don't rinse your mouth after eating, fruit residue can easily lead to cavities.
3. Avoid eating too much fruit: Excessive fruit consumption can lead to copper deficiency in the body, which in turn increases cholesterol in the blood and may cause coronary heart disease. Therefore, it is not advisable to eat a large amount of fruit in a short period.
4. Avoid eating unhygienic fruit: Eating fruit that is starting to rot, or fruit like strawberries, mulberries, and sliced watermelon that is not protected from dust and flies and has not been thoroughly washed and disinfected, can easily cause digestive tract infections such as dysentery, typhoid fever, and acute gastroenteritis.
5. Avoid using alcohol to disinfect fruit: Although alcohol can kill bacteria on the surface of fruit, it will change the fruit's color, aroma, and taste. The reaction between alcohol and the acids in the fruit will reduce its nutritional value.
6. Avoid eating raw fruit without peeling it: Some people believe that the peel contains more vitamins than the flesh and therefore eat the fruit with the skin on. However, what they don't realize is that when fruits suffer from pests and diseases, pesticides are often used to kill them. These pesticides can penetrate and remain in the waxy layer of the peel, meaning the pesticide residue in the peel is much higher than in the flesh.
7. Avoid using a kitchen knife to peel fruit: Kitchen knives often come into contact with meat, fish, and vegetables, which can transfer parasites or their eggs to the fruit, leading to parasitic infections in humans. Moreover, the rust on the knife can react with the tannic acid in apples, degrading the apple's color, aroma, and flavor.