The Hindu Business Line : Fruit power

My doctor says I'm hypoglycaemic. Does that mean I'm diabetic," Apeksha asks anxiously. No, she isn't. Hypoglycaemia merely means `low blood glucose.' Glucose is the fuel for our cells and brain. Low energy is caused by low levels of glucose, a condition that is called `hypoglycaemia.'

However, hypoglycaemia can lead to diabetes. When you eat nutrition-deficient food, you don't supply your cells with glucose. This forces your adrenal gland to secrete cortisol to rob protein from your cells. This protein is to be converted to glucose and returned to the cells. But this doesn't happen.

Since this is an abnormal biological process, in defence, the pituitary gland secretes growth hormones to prevent protein-pilferage.

The growth hormone enters the cell to guard its protein stock. Starved of glucose, the cells weaken. This is hypoglycaemia.

However, the glucose converted by cortisol cannot enter the cells due to the belligerent presence of the growth hormones inside them, and hangs heavily in the bloodstream. This is diabetes.

Your endeavour should be to make digestion an easy and effortless process for the body. For a day, release it from struggling to convert fats, proteins and carbohydrates to glucose. Eat only fruits. The body doesn't have to lift a finger to digest fruit. The fruity sugar fructose is so easy to digest and absorb that the body cells get instantly nourished, the body gets instantly energised and hypoglycaemia becomes history.

Over the next few days, think in terms of `fruit' for all your meals:

Fruity breakfast

Grate an apple into your dosa.

Toast bread topped with a pineapple slice sprinkled with anise seeds (saunf).

Add chopped banana to your oatmeal porridge.

Beat and blend fresh figs with skimmed milk.

Roll a mango slice in your roti.

Fruity snacks

Grapes or strawberries.

Sprinkle chat masala powder on a mix of chopped apple, peach, papaya, plum, skinned orange and sweet lime.

Top a cream cracker with a banana coin topped with a cherry.

Mix chopped figs in mango pulp and pour into canapés.

Thread fruits on a skewer, roast and serve as kababs.

Fruity meals

Add apples or grapes to fresh vegetable salads.

Add pineapple slivers into stuffings.

Steam rice with apple, clove and cinnamon.

Make pineapple rasam/sambhar.

Have apple/banana/mango/pineapple raita.

Fruity desserts

A mixed fruit platter

Steam bread squares, guava pieces, sugar, chopped dates, and skimmed milk with corn-flour. Makes a delicious guava bread pudding.

Load soft stewed fruits onto a small dollop of ice-cream/shrikhand.

Roast halved banana on tava.

These ideas are to initiate you into thinking `fruit' and eating fruit. If you've had only mangoes during the mango season and no fruit for the rest of the year in your growing years, you will require wisdom, skill, and constant awareness to bring these healthful changes to your eating habits.

The secret is not to resist. Just go about calmly making these healthy changes. As you cultivate a taste for fruit, switch slowly to eating fruit by itself. Breakfast on fruit alone, for example. Fruit contains all the digestive enzymes required. It's literally Mother Nature's fast food — our system digests it faster than you can say "banana"! It's best eaten alone on an empty stomach for it to be properly absorbed.

For lunch, you can start with fruit. About 20 minutes later, have a nice garden-fresh vegetable salad liberally sprinkled with raw moong sprouts. Have a variety of carbohydrates. Most people have either rice or whole-wheat rotis. I suggest a different roti each day — bajra, jowar, makai, etc. This ensures that you ingest a variety of enzymes.

As you develop your taste buds for more fruits and vegetables, budget accordingly. Spend most on fresh fruits and vegetables; moderately on cereals, pulses, and milk, and least on processed foods such as biscuits, chocolates, etc.

This is not so much about getting value for money, but getting value for great health. When the budget gets stretched, it's not because you've added on good foods like fruits and vegetables, but because you have not eliminated wrong foods such as soft drinks, salties, etc. I also suggest gifting a basket of fruits instead of a box of sweetmeats. Sweetmeats may signify an occasion, but fruit signifies love and health.

(The writer is co-author of the book, Fitness for Life.)

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