Fruit – Most People Don’t Eat Enough. This Simple Recipe Guarantees You Will!

Fruit is one of nature’s great gifts. It’s full of fibre, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and antioxidants. It comes in endless variety. It’s sweet, it’s juicy, and each bite explodes with flavour. But despite all that, most of us don’t get around to eating the recommended amount … and when Michele and I began living together many years ago, that described me and her daughter, Nicole, as well.

As a kid, I grew up on a fruit farm, and I loved eating fruit, so my lack of consumption wasn’t a case of changing my palette or anything like that, but instead, it was just a case of out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

Michele does all the food shopping, which includes buying fruit. When she unpacked the groceries, naturally enough, she would put them in the fridge and there they would stay.

She used to get so frustrated with me – and I don’t blame her – but I didn’t know it was there because I didn’t buy the fruit. Shell thought that was a pretty lame excuse, and she used to say, “well, you won’t find it if you don’t look for it,” which is true, but that’s not how I, and I suspect most people work. We tend not to look for something that’s not on our radar. (For some reason, this logic breaks down in the case of the snack cupboard)

So, in her frustration, she got the bright idea of taking some fruit out, washing it, cutting it up and leaving it on the counter. Guess what? Between Nicole and me it virtually disappeared in just a couple of hours.

Beware of the Diet & Supplement Peddlars

Most people fall short of getting the necessary daily recommended serving of fruit, and part of the reason may be the deliberate confusion sown by the many medically credentialed charlatans and snake oil salespeople selling their weight-loss programs on Public Television and the internet. They advise us not to eat fruit because of its high sugar content. Of course, it just happens (as they “see” it) that the solution to weight loss and better health can be found by purchasing the supplements and programs their shilling.

To these hucksters, all I have to say is that our overweight and obesity issues are not the result of eating too much fruit. In fact, it’s doubtful that you can overeat fruit even if you want to because fruits are very high in water and fibre, which makes them quite filling. And the wonderful thing about fruit is that you’ll likely feel full and satisfied after just one serving.

The truth is fruit is essential to the health of our microbiome and the variety of fruit is so critical to feeding the diversity of our microbes because as the health of our microbiome goes, so goes OUR health. The bottom line is unless you have a medical reason not to eat fruit, you want to have it as part of your diet.

This simple recipe is a way to make sure that you and your family enjoy one of nature’s greatest gifts – and the wonderful variety that these gifts come in because this is one dessert you can and should eat every day … and the best part is fruit salad is beyond delicious.