Just two quick things:

1. Yes, V8 has a fruit juice, but after reading the ingredients I'm not that impressed. It's junk.

2. Vegetable chips already exist and are quite popular. Sorry.

I think a huge problem in the obesity epidemic is simply not having to do things people once used to need to do to get by.

We have dish washers, laundry machines, video games, TV, cell phones, internet... We don't HAVE to be active if we don't want to. In the older days, doing laundry and dishes was a chore, when TV and video games and computers weren't around, kids went and played outside. Now that we don't really need to be doing much of anything, obesity has become an epidemic. It's really simple, the less we need to do, the less exercise we get, and the fatter we get.

The problem isn't fruit and fructose/glucose/whatever, it's that people aren't active like they once were.

The cure to this isn't changing/eliminating fruit choices, it's being more active.

In my opinion, all this junk about certain food items being more bad than others is all a bunch of fooey. Human bodies can digest so many things and use them for energy. Yes there are choices that are healthier than others, but when it comes to survival, food is food. Fruit isn't bad in any way. It's all about moderation. More importantly, it's all about balancing food intake with activity levels.

Regarding the study you cited in the beginning about the guy who ate 3 pears a day and gained weight-- I'm not sure what this study was so I haven't looked at it directly. However, based on your description, I can tell that while the study might be technically done in a controlled manner, it is not physiologically relevant. The point of recommending fruit for people trying to lose/ maintain weight is that fruit fills you up (because of the high fiber content) and leads you to consume fewer calories. So the idea is that you replace a 200 calorie cookie with a 50 calorie pear, not that you eat a 50 calorie pear plus 3/4 of a cookie for a grand total of 200 calories (which is what the guy in the study did). I'm still a bit skeptical of the fact that he gained weight while maintaining calorie intake, but I can't evaluate that without seeing the actual study. Regardless, I think it's a moot point because that's not the idea behind recommending fruit for weight loss.

If you're arguing that fruit make you gain weight, what is your replacement for nutrients and vitamins you lose when you cut those from your diet?

Here's my opinion on the subject, based on no facts at all, just from what I've gleaned here and there so take it for it's worth. Fruit itself isn't the issue. I was watching a show and they were talking about natural farming and how without pesticides and fertilizers they were able to grow abundant food. That you let the food grow as it would in nature - you don't til or weed or add extra fertilizers, that the bugs eat the food that has started to turn and the bodies of the bugs and the rotting fruit fertilize the soil. In turn the food doesn't grow as big, but is rich with nutrients.

I've seen that in my backyard. The peaches on my peach trees aren't the giants you find at the grocery store. The bell pepper I grew was adorable in comparison with it's jumbo fruit aisle cousins. Overgrowing the food doesn't mean it's healthier - it just means it's supersized. When I shop, I try to buy the apple someone else might not - the smaller but firm and funny looking one. It's typically just the right size - it fills me up, gets my blood sugar levels up, and I never waste any. I think we're so accustomed to huge portions that we feel everything has to big; the bigger the apple, obviously the better for you it is... nope. It just means you overeat. Again I have no source info for that, I heard it on a tv show one night so take it with a grain of salt.

My solution wouldn't be trying to turn fruit into a villain or say it will absolutely do this or won't do that, but instead focus on teach children about portion control. How many strawberries is the right serving size for a 6 year old? How many grams or ounces does it equal? What a fun way to eat them? I taught a summer camp one year and this one kids would eat *anything* if they could spear it on a toothpick. Her mom would have some sliced grapes and diced strawberries and tangerine sections and melon in a little container and the kid would stab the fruit and eat it up. A friend gives her son "popsicles" made from half a peeled banana stuck on a popsicle stick and frozen. That's the angle I would go if I were doing that assignment - portion control made fun with fruit.

As a scientist it makes me quite mad that so many people spread obviously wrong information about nutrition. Glucose is definitely needed, and fructose is not unhealthy either. As always though, you can't just rely on eating fruit and veggies to cut down on weight, you have to exercise as well! I too am very skeptical about the guy gaining weight from pears, I haven't read it, but to me that is not right, and like already mentioned, it's not the sugar in it that counts so much, but the other stuff as well. But moving on from that, seeing as it's already been adressed.

Going along those lines, when I was a kid, me and my sister LOVED eating frozen grapes. We'd put a bunch in the freezer and eat them the next day, and I've seen other people do it with bananas etc, but as far as I know they aren't commercially available. Something along those lines would potentially work? I think if you keep thinking along the lines of trying to turn fruit or veggies into something that looks like junk food, you'll be wasting your time, it's just not really possible. And on a moral ground, you're still not teaching kids that jnk food is bad, coz then you'll be encouraging them to eat it!!

Another note, most store bought fruit juices are't full of half the stuff they say they are, and are full of preservative and additives. A neat way to test for that sort of thing is by the best before date, if it's got a few weeks on it, you know it's got bad stuff in it. If it's only good for a few days, then you're fine!

Oh and by the way, you do realise that table salt is sucrose, right? Which is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose that is broken down in the body, so really, if you eat table sugar, you're not actually eating anything different...

Oh and by the way, you do realise that table salt is sucrose, right? Which is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose that is broken down in the body, so really, if you eat table sugar, you're not actually eating anything different...

I think you mean table sugar, not "salt?" Table salt is NaCl. I agree that table sugar is nearly completely converted to glucose + fructose, which then enter the usual metabolic pathways.

I just finished a book on the history of food, and what I picked up from that is that people will buy food that's convenient. If you want to come up with a product that people will buy, you don't have to make it flashy or creative, just make it easy.
If someone had been able to patent baby carrots, they'd be rich. They're exactly the same as regular carrots, except you don't have to wash or peel them. Find something like that for fruit and you'd be golden. Bonus points if you don't have to refrigerate it. Most fruit is pretty eatable already though.

Hahha oops yeah that was a typo! And I agree, convenience is the key!

Mendel wrote:

Regarding the study you cited in the beginning about the guy who ate 3 pears a day and gained weight

I agree...
One person in a study -> a case report (anecdotal report);
at least 30 people in the study, with properly matched control people -> generalization to the population.

Re: storing fresh fruit, an easy way to protect food from spoiling is to package it in a protected atmosphere (low/no oxygen), or to add vitamins C and/or E (to prevent oxidation in water-based products and fat-based products (Coca cola does not add vit. C to its products to make them healthier, you know ).

My mom has a variety of "green" produce bags that, honestly, keep fresh produce fresh for weeks.

I sent her one of those Edible Arrangements one time, not knowing that my dad and two of my sisters did the same thing.

She "bagged" the fruit on May 20th and it was still good for the Memorial Day gathering.

I don't think this link is the kind of bag she uses, but it does claim to keep produce fresh for three weeks.

whatscookingamerica.net . . .

Jazzy...how is your project doing? Let us know.
xoxo

Keep On Dancing*

Thank you guys so much.

I switched the project last minute to Nike Shoes because it had less grey areas.

I will keep this open for discussion because I plan to do a project similar to this sometime during my undergrad work. I just needed more time to get my research in.