Understanding fruit properties is key to healthy eating
Introduction: Folks, there's actually a right way to eat fruit! For those of us who love fruit, it's essential to understand their properties. Choose the right ones, and you can eat healthily! Friends who love fruit shouldn't miss this!
The properties of fruit are also related to your body constitution. When it comes to food properties, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has the concept of the "Four Natures." This refers to the effect a food has on the body, producing "cold, hot, warm, or cool" properties. If a food is neither hot nor cold, it is classified as "neutral." Therefore, each fruit has its own "personality" when it enters the human body. TCM also emphasizes balance and the harmony of yin and yang. People with a "heaty" constitution should eat more cooling foods, while those with a "cold" constitution should naturally eat more warming foods. The same principle applies to eating fruit. At the same time, terrain and climate also affect physiology and diet. For example, in subtropical regions, the intense summer heat can cause headaches, body heat, thirst, and irritability. To achieve balance, it's best to choose more cooling and cold-natured foods.
Properties of Common Fruits
Warming Fruits:
Hawthorn, cherry, pomegranate, lychee, olive, papaya, ginkgo nut, etc.
Cooling Fruits:
Watermelon, muskmelon, pear, mandarin, orange, banana, mulberry, persimmon, water chestnut, etc.
Neutral Fruits:
Grape, apple, peach, apricot, pineapple, longan, sugarcane, dark plum, etc.
Generally speaking, it's more appropriate to eat warming fruits in the winter and cooling fruits in the summer. Neutral fruits are suitable for consumption all year round.
In the summer, be scientific about your fruit choices. For those with a sensitive stomach, absolutely avoid frozen fruits. It's best to choose more cooling or warming fruits that are not too sweet or too sour. Cooling fruits include: pear (eat less if you have a sensitive stomach), banana (don't eat on an empty stomach). Warming fruits include: apple (a great fruit that anyone can eat, and it's super nutritious), lemon, tomato (eat less if you have excess stomach acid). Easily digestible melons, water pears, and apples are also good choices. However, from a TCM perspective, individuals with a deficient and cold constitution, chronic enteritis, duodenal ulcers, or "stomach cold" (i.e., gastritis, gastric ulcers) should avoid eating cooling foods like watermelon and muskmelon. Mangoes are delicious, but some people can't even touch them because they cause allergies and itchy skin. Doctors point out that mango skin contains histamine, which can easily cause allergic reactions. Theoretically, mango is considered a "trigger food," and for people with infectious diseases, skin conditions, or inflammatory symptoms, eating trigger foods can induce or worsen their condition. However, classified by its flesh, mango is cooling in nature and has effects like promoting saliva production to quench thirst, benefiting the stomach to prevent vomiting, and promoting urination to relieve coughing. It can also alleviate discomfort for people who are prone to motion sickness.
Fruit Consumption Tips:
1. Always wash them thoroughly
Before eating fruit, it's best to disinfect it. Soak it in a 0.1% potassium permanganate or 0.2% bleach solution for 5-10 minutes, then rinse with clean water. Alternatively, you can blanch it in boiling water for about half a minute to kill bacteria. For some fruits, you can rinse them in cold water before peeling. This not only removes bacteria from the skin but also prevents consuming any residual pesticides.
2. Follow the "Four Don'ts"
(1) Don't eat unripe fruit, as it contains more tannins, tastes astringent, and is less palatable.
(2) Don't pick and eat wild fruits you don't recognize, as some can be harmful to the human body.
(3) Don't eat spoiled or rotten fruit, as it contains a large amount of bacteria that can easily cause illness after consumption.
(4) Don't casually eat fruit pits, as some contain toxic substances (such as bitter apricot kernels, loquat kernels, etc.), which can lead to poisoning after consumption.
3. Eat fruit in moderation
The Chinese Nutrition Society recommends in the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents" that the daily intake of fruit should be 100 to 200 grams. In simpler terms, this is equivalent to two units of fruit per day (one cup of juice or one medium-sized fruit equals one unit).
Different fruits contain different nutrients. Therefore, it's best to have a varied selection of fruits. If your financial situation allows, it's recommended to eat two different types of fruit daily, consumed in several servings.
4. Eat fruit at the right time
Many people have developed the habit of eating fruit after a meal, but this is actually not scientific for four reasons:
(1) Fruit can easily get stuck in the stomach along with other food, causing bloating, constipation, etc.
(2) Fruit contains a lot of sugars, such as glucose and fructose. Eating fruit immediately after a meal increases the burden on the digestive tract and pancreas. Some fruits are also high in starch and difficult to digest.
(3) Fruit is rich in cellulose and hemicellulose, which are highly absorbent. When they absorb water, they expand, which can increase bowel movements. When there is too much cellulose, it can also affect the absorption of vitamins and trace elements.
(4) For people trying to lose weight, eating a large amount of fruit after a meal can lead to obesity due to excess energy.
Conclusion: See! There's a lot to learn about eating fruit! I'm sure you've learned a lot from this detailed introduction. After reading all this, have you found the fruits that are right for you? Be sure to choose the right ones next time you buy fruit! Share this beneficial content for your health right away!