alcoholTag Archives

Do we really need five a day?

I’m currently reading Trick And Treat – how ‘healthy eating’ is making us ill by Barry Groves.  Barry Groves has taken a close look at many studies.  Often, the abstracts on the medical journal articles do not agree with what the data presented in the article would indicate.  Also, some recommendations have no basis in research.  One of those recommendations is the Five a Day advice for fruits and vegetables.  Studies have shown that two a week is sufficient to get maximum benefit.  I like vegetables enough that I’ll keep eating them anyway.  As for fruits, they contain fructose, the most harmful of sugars.  Their value is questionable when the nutrition they contain can just as easily be gotten from vegetables.  Fructose is the sugar that causes belly fat.  Fructose is also the sugar most detrimental to the immune system, though the other simple sugars aren’t far behind.  Another source I’ve seen said that fructose is metabolized in the liver the same way that alcohol is, and we know what alcohol can do to the liver.  Table sugar and high fructose corn syrup are about half fructose, which makes them dangerous, too.  Barry Groves’ site: http://www.second-opinions.co.uk