While many Westerners like to have a piece of fruit as breakfast in the morning, Chinese on the other hand often eat their fruits after meal. We all know that fruits are a healthy food choice, but are you aware that when and how you eat them can actually have their values changed? Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Practitioner explained.
Having Fruit First In The Morning
The level of sugar in our blood normally would be at the lowest point after a long-night sleep. So it is better to have low GI (Glycemic Index) fruits like apple, blackberry, cherry, grape, peach, pear, and raspberry.
However, we should avoid eating acid-type fruits as they may stimulate the stomach to secrete hydrochloric acid in gastric juice and upset our stomach. Furthermore, in order to protect our spleen and stomach, it is always good to eat something warm beforehand.
Having Fruit Between Meals
An adult should eat two portions (a portion is about the size of a fist) of fruits every day. The best time of eating them is before meal or in between meals, especially between lunch and dinner. It is because the level of sugar (glucose) in our blood at this time usually is relatively low; to have a piece of fruit can help replenish the blood sugar.
Having Fruit After Meal
It definitely is not an ideal timing to have fruit right after a full meal. The reason is since the foods such as meat, grain, vegetable, etc. in our stomach need longer time to be digested compared with fruits (nutrients of fruits are easily being broken down), the fruits that we eat after the meal would be easily fermented and could impair our health.
Yet, if you really want to have fruit after meal, you better wait for two hours. In doing so, you also avoid having your blood sugar risen sharply.
Having Acid-type Fruit And Sweet-type Fruit Together
It is a bad idea to eat acid fruit and sweet fruit together. In fact, due to chemical reactions, when you have both types of fruits at the same time, the respective nutrients would be degraded or canceled. As a result, you may experience indigestion, flatulence, and wear out your pancreas in the long run.
Not sure which is which? Read on.
Acid-type Fruit: Grapefruit, green apple, kiwi, lemon, orange, pineapple, strawberry, etc.
Sweet-type Fruit: Banana, custard apple (sugar apple), durian, fig, honey melon, longan (dragon eye), persimmon, etc.
Sub-acid-type Fruit: Apple, apricot, cherry, mango, papaya, peach, pear, etc.
For the sub-acid fruits, they can be eaten together with acid or sweet fruits.
Having Cooked Fruit
Although the most heat-sensitive nutrients in fruits such as the water-soluble B group vitamins and vitamin C are reduced by the effects of cooking, not all nutrients are lost in the heating process.
Take apple pie as an example. When the apple is peeled for the pie, some fiber is gone. Also, some vitamin C is lower too during baking. Potassium, on the other hand, is a mineral and like calcium that will not be lost in cooking. So, an apple pie should contain the majority of nutrients as a fresh apple does.
In Chinese culture, some dishes featured cooked fruits are purposely for preserving health and easing symptoms as some kinds of folk remedies. Double-steamed Pear With Rock Sugar Soup to moisten the lungs and eliminate phlegm; Double-Steamed Papaya With Snow Fungus Soup to moisten the lungs, preserve beauty and “Yin” are two of them. In fact, since water-soluble vitamins tend to leach into water, so when choosing double-steamed cooking method and use the water to make soup, you won’t just throw vitamin-enriched water down the sink.
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