Can You Eat Fruit? Can You Eat Bananas?

Many patients ask me if it’s healthy to eat fruit because fruits contain sugar.

Both natural and processed foods contain sugars. This doesn’t make them a “bad” or “good” food necessarily. It depends on individual nutrition care.

For example, sugar in fruits or processed foods isn’t harmful in moderate portions if a person doesn’t have diabetes, kidney disease, or seizures. However, in the case of a person with diabetes, for example, the portions of sugars have to be controlled because controlling sugar intake is the most effective way of controlling blood sugars. It isn’t recommended to eliminate carbs, but to count carbs.

Today is National banana day. This beloved fruit has everybody talking about whether it’s healthy or not to consume.

Bananas are sweet because they contain starch, a more complex type of sugar. Once they start ripening, the starch turns into a simpler form of sugar. More sugar will be released if you cook them – like many Hispanics, Africans, and Caribbeans cook platanos, or plantains. After cooking, plantains or bananas could be 25% sweeter than before cooking; bananas caramelize when cooked.

Don’t be afraid to ask your nutritionist about controversial foods, especially controversial in the media, where there’s much disinformation. This is how we learn: by studying and exposing the facts about natural and processed foods.

xoxo,

Girlene