The Times reports that fruit has gone out of fashion due to modern low-carb diets that have given tasty fruits like bananas, mangos, plums, and pears a bad name. The article reports that this trend is likely to continue, thanks to celebrity fad diets that, like the Adkins diet that bans fruit in favor of bacon, label fruit as fattening. But this is a perilous mistake and the latest government figures show the extent of the problem: "Despite constant nudging from health experts, our purchases of fresh fruit have fallen by an astonishing 11 per cent in the past five years. We can’t blame the credit crunch: fruit prices grew more slowly than other foods in the same period."
The Times article is chock full of information about how fruit benefits health, not damages it. Among many other studies, The Times points out that "scientists are revealing how shunning fruit can be a complete dietary fallacy. A recent study by the Florida State University found that women who ate 75g of dried apple a day, (the equivalent of four apples) for six months, lost weight and improved their cholesterol levels." Similar results were formulated by scientists at the University of Navarra, in Pamplona, Spain. Their study found that overweight women on diets in which 15 per cent of their calories came from fruit lost an average of 15lb after two months.
Additionally, a 2006 study, by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, found that those who ate fruit and vegetables daily, or almost daily, were half as likely to miscarry in the first three months compared with those who ate fruit and veg less regularly. Fruit has also been linked to reduced pain in women suffering from endometriosis. Looks like the old adage that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" might be gospel truth after all.
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