When to eat fruits ... ? Interference with digestion?

[Jlee]

I noticed that Whole30 encourages small servings of fruit throughout the day after a meal or as a snack. I read from two nutrition books that fruit should be only consumed early in the day on an empty stomach so that it can be digested separately. Meat takes the longest to digest in the stomach and move through, and fruits take the shortest, so the idea is that if you eat meat and then fruit afterwards, it will create a traffic-jam situation with a fast moving car behind a slow moving one.

 

Different nutritionists do give different advice, so I don't know how accurate/true the above idea is. Is anyone experiencing digestive upsets related to this? Have you noticed?   

[daylily]

I have studied and put into practice 'food combing' for years. It does work. I have read eat fruit alone or leave it alone; and melons too. Also don't combine melon and fruit. I love watermelon in the morning:).  Since starting W30- 3rd day; I save a fruit for last at night when I am pretty empty. Like at least 3-4 hrs after dinner. Or I will juice fresh apples, carrots, and beets to get some micro nutrients in late afternoon.  I am a rookie at this and have borrowed the book from my daughter on Kindle; learning each day

[GFChris]

I noticed that Whole30 encourages small servings of fruit throughout the day after a meal or as a snack. 

Whole30 does not encourage this practice.

Fruit is optional on a Whole30. For those who chose to have it, the recommendation is 1-2 servings a day, where a serving is a whole piece of fruit the size of your fist.  Fruit is not recommended as a snack: instead the recommendation is to have fruit with or immediately after a meal only.  The recommended snack, when hungry between meals on a Whole30, is a mini meal that includes a protein and fat.

I cannot speak to the digestive principles - perhaps others can weigh in on that front.

[Tom Denham]

Hold on! You are consuming false information. The Whole30 does NOT encourage eating fruit as you describe. In fact, the Whole30 does not encourage eating fruit at all. We push veggies at every meal and warn against allowing fruit to push veggies off your plate. We allow that you might eat one or two fist-size servings of fruit per day and recommend including them in meals, but we are happy with participants who never get around to eating fruit at all. There is not a single thing found in fruit that you cannot get more of from your veggies. 

 

Our digestive system is not a simple, mechanical tube or conveyor belt that requires us to feed in a certain order to achieve good digestion. Our bodies handle mixes of different foods easily. Worrying about the order in which you eat meat or fruit is a waste. 

 

When we eat certain foods and what we eat with them can make a difference, but it is not a digestion problem. Most of the time it is related to our blood sugar and sensitivity to insulin. Eating fruit on an empty stomach can provoke a "sugar rush" for people who have trouble with their blood sugar levels. This is one of the reasons we recommend including any fruit with meals, so that the protein and fat can slow the digestion of the fruit and spread the release of sugar in the body over a longer period. 

[GlennR]

Don't mean to pile on, but eating fruit at night also tends to spike your sugar levels just when you want to be winding down, making it more difficult to sleep or sleep soundly.

[GrannieD]

I'm so relieved to find out that it is not mandatory to eat fruit on the Whole30! I have been on a very low carb diet (less than 30g/day) prior to starting this on Monday and have actually been worried that I would gain weight this month. With the increased vege intake plus adding fruit I am not sure how my body will react. I am on Day #2 and intend to give it the full 30 no matter what, but now I will continue to limit if not leave out fruit.