How to eat nuts and fruits in a healthy diet?

Author: Valeria Meleshina - personal trainer and nutritionist.
2017-02-14

I was asked to write about fruits and nuts—what to combine them with and how to consume them properly. Let's figure it out.

So, what impact does eating a fruit have on our body?

- All fruits contain fructose.

* Fructose is a simple carbohydrate. It consists of two "units" of sugar, making it a disaccharide.

Glucose is processed in the liver in the form of glycogen. All carbohydrates are broken down into glucose. Since glucose affects the insulin level in our blood, which regulates blood sugar, insulin must be produced in our bodies to stop the rise of glucose or blood sugar. This requires a special enzyme called fructokinase-1, which is responsible for converting glucose into glycogen. According to scientific data, the body can store up to 400 grams of carbohydrates as glycogen. Any excess carbohydrates consumed will be converted into subcutaneous fat.

Fructose, however, bypasses the aforementioned enzyme upon entering the body. Therefore, it goes straight to subcutaneous fat without being converted into glycogen.

This is where the danger lies: when we eat fruits, we do not feel full. The feeling of fullness is primarily regulated by blood glucose levels. If glucose does not increase, there is no sense of satiety.

Moreover, almost all fruits that dieting women love to snack on tend to have a high glycemic index (GI). What is GI? The glycemic index is a measure of how your blood sugar will respond to food. With a high GI, blood sugar spikes rapidly. In response to a rise in blood sugar, the body releases insulin. Insulin is necessary to regulate blood sugar. If blood sugar is not regulated, it can lead to diabetes. This is what insulin is produced for—to control this level.

GI can be low, medium, or high. When we are trying to lose weight, we need to pay attention to this indicator and choose foods with predominantly low and medium GI.

In addition to the glycemic index, there is also the concept of glycemic load (GL). GL indicates how the body responds to the intake of carbohydrates. That means we look not only at GI but also at the number of carbohydrates in a product. How can we calculate glycemic load? We look at the GI of the product, see the amount of carbohydrates per 100 grams, and calculate it: GIs times the number of carbohydrates divided by 100. This gives us the GL of the product. A low GL is considered to be up to 10, medium from 11 to 19, and high 20 or more.

Some fruits and berries also have a sour taste. Sourness, on the other hand, typically increases hunger in the body. Therefore, I do not recommend snacking on fruits or berries alone. They should always be combined with something else. An ideal snack would be fruit or berries plus a handful of nuts.

Why like this? Let's explore nuts. What are nuts? They are unsaturated fatty acids for the body. Or lipids.

Fats are absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract and processed in the liver. Like carbohydrates, they go into glycogen in the liver. However, unlike carbohydrates, the liver does not store triglycerides. It does not reserve them like it does with glycogen. Scientific data indicates that less than 1% of triglycerides are stored in the liver. However, the liver is where the biosynthesis of cholesterol, phospholipids, and bile acids occurs. The liver plays a key role in the mobilization, consumption, and synthesis of fats in other tissues of our body. This happens because virtually all fat metabolism processes take place through the liver.

Now let's trace the relationship between the processes of digesting carbohydrates and fats. When the body actively oxidizes fatty acids, the processes of glucose utilization slow down. In other words, when we eat fats and fruits together, glucose in the blood is absorbed more slowly.

If glucose is absorbed in the blood more slowly, the feeling of fullness will last longer. Glucose in the blood will still increase, but not immediately. Consequently, in response to the rise in blood glucose, the body will release insulin. Insulin will provide us with a sense of fullness, while lipids will prolong that feeling. That means we will both feel full and supply our brains with glucose.

Thus, we can conclude: an ideal snack for the first half of the day would be fruits or berries plus a handful of nuts.