Fruit plays in important role in the diet. It contains vitamins, antioxidants and other nutrients that are essential for good health. The USDA recommends eating two to four servings of fruit daily for good health, and selecting a variety of fruits from across the spectrum of colors to assure adequate vitamin intake. Many protein diets allow fruit as part of the diet plan.
Identification
Many protein diets are also low-carbohydrate diets. The terms ketogenic diet and protein-sparing diet are alternate names for protein diets, because the body enters a state of ketosis, where it burns fat as its primary source of fuel while maintaining lean body tissue such as muscle. Atkins, Protein Power, Zone and PaNu are all protein diets that allow fruit.
History
The earliest protein diets date back to prehistoric times, explain doctors Michael and Mary Dan Eades, who designed the Protein Power diet. Paleolithic humans subsisted primarily on what they could hunt or forage, mostly animal protein, animal fat, vegetable-like plants and seasonally available fruit. Very little has occurred in human evolution that would change those nutritional needs, and it is very likely that today's humans have dietary needs similar to their ancestors. Humans have not evolved to eat many of the foods available in modern civilization such as cultivated grains, sugar and processed foods. Obesity and diseases such as Type 2 diabetes are the inevitable result of eating foods that human bodies haven't evolved to process.
Theory
Dr. Kurt Harris, who designed the PaNu diet, agrees with the Eades assessment of today's dietary habits, and suggests that such habits lead to inefficient food metabolism. A return to the evolutionary way of eating will help to repair human metabolism in overweight individuals, which has been broken by eating modern foods. In "Good Calories, Bad Calories," Gary Taubes explains the chemical process of this broken metabolism. When you eat grains, sugars and other carbohydrate-laden foods, your blood glucose rises and the pancreas releases insulin. When insulin is present in the bloodstream, your body stores the food you eat as fat and keeps stored fat trapped in fat cells. When insulin is absent, your body uses fat as its primary source of fuel.
Recommendations
Various protein diets make differing recommendations when it comes to fruit; however, they all allow some fruit. Atkins, for instance, allows a limited amount fruit after the diet's initial phases. The first fruits Atkins allows are berries, which are relatively low in sugar. The Protein Power diet allows fruit in all phases, provided you eat no more than 7 g to 10 g of carbohydrates per meal in early phases and fewer than 15 g of carbohydrates per meal in ongoing weight loss phases. Zone recommends eating 30 percent of your calories at every meal from carbohydrates, including low-sugar fruits. PaNu suggests eating fruits when they are seasonally available.
Considerations
Protein diets that restrict grains run counter to the recommendations of the USDA food pyramid, which suggests you eat 3 to 6 oz. of whole grains daily in order to get adequate vitamins and minerals. Both Dr. Atkins and the Drs. Eades contend that if you eat a variety of foods allowed on their plans, you will meet all of the USDA requirements for nutrients without needing to eat grains. Always check with your doctor before going on a protein diet. Since the diet contains high levels of protein, it may lead to kidney problems.
References
- MyPyramid.gov: Inside the Pyramid
- Medical News Today: What Is Ketosis
- "Protein Power Lifeplan"; Michael R. Eades, M.D. and Mary Dan Eades, M.D.; 2000
- PaNu -- Paleolithic Nutrition: What Is PaNu; Kurt G. Harris, M.D.
- "Good Calories, Bad Calories" ; Gary Taubes; 2007
- "Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution"; Robert C. Atkins, M.D.; 1992
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