This article about Fruitarianism and Juicearianism is part 2 of a 5 part series. Read part 1 here: Part 1: Raw Veganism  Part 3 is here: Part 3: Sproutarianism

Today, I’m discussing Fruitarianism and Juicarianism.  I decided to do them both together because some people get them confused – and for good reason, since they both involve lots of fruit.  Here’s my table of information for the diets examined in this series (with macrobiotic and vegetarianism being included for baseline comparisons). Click to enlarge:

Fruitarianism
The garden of Eden, an idyllic, beautiful, perfect place where man and woman lived innocently at one with the Earth. Even most Christians believe Eden was a metaphor for our different state of existence before God changed us as a species due to the Original Sin. Fruitarians? They see Eden as a valid and workable diet plan. It really sparks the imagination and I can see why people would try this as a way of connecting with their environment through consumption. But from a nutritional point of view it’s a terrible idea. Some religions follow this way of eating, and it was incorporated into the original Creationist Diet (a real diet, which I will compare to the Paleo Diet when I’ve researched them both).

The rules: You must only eat fruit, right? Actually, according to http://www.thefruitarian.com there are many different interpretations of what it means to be a fruitarian:
“Here are some common definitions associated with a Fruitarian diet:
Wikipedia: Fruitarianism involves the practice of following a diet that includes fruits, nuts and seeds, without animal products, vegetables and grains.
Dictionary.com: a person whose diet consists chiefly of fruit.
UrbanDictionary.com: A person of extreme dietary discipline who eats only the reproductive offshoots of plants.
Princeton.edu: People whose diet consists of 75% or more fruit.
Fruitarian.com: The fruitarian diet consists of RAW fruit and seeds ONLY!”
Source: http://www.thefruitarian.com/content/what-fruitarianism

So there’s a lot of scope here for trying different configurations of fruitarianism and seeing which one suits your body best. At a 75% fruit mark, this also allows you to bring in other foods, although it would depend on your individual beliefs as to what you would eat in the other 25%.

The Benefits: Getting back to nature and to a natural diet that can be eaten without processed or chemically-enhanced food seems to be an underlying theme to many of these diets, but fruitarianism does it in a way that still involves a lot of variety, with people using very different decision making processes to select foods – for some people, reducing their carbon footprint is important, for others, decisions are made by only eating local foods that would have been found if there was no city where they lived, and for others still, it’s about developing and following instincts about which fruit they should eat. Aside from the environmental benefits to eating fruitarian, adherents claim (the same as raw vegans) that they get significantly more energy from their foods than they did “before” however, I would argue rationally that it’s the developed consciousness of eating and sense of interconnectedness that is causing them to select foods that naturally contain more energy (plus all the fruit sugars), rather than adhering to any restrictive doctrine as critics have accused.

The Drawbacks: Deficiencies all over the place! As a fruitarian, if you avoided nuts/seeds, there are many vitamins, minerals and amino acids that you couldn’t get.  The problem is still present to a lesser extent even if you do eat nuts and seeds.

Sugar intake! The biggest issue is that there is far too much sugar (specifically fructose) in fruits. According to Dr Mercola, an advocate of unbiased un-moneyed medical information: “Fructose, a simple sugar found in fruit, is preferentially metabolized to fat in your liver, and eating large amounts has been linked to negative metabolic and endocrine effects. So eating very large amounts – or worse, nothing but fruit – can logically increase your risk of a number of health conditions, from insulin and leptin resistance to cancer.
For example, research has shown that pancreatic tumor cells use fructose, specifically, to divide and proliferate, thus speeding up the growth and spread of the cancer.”
Steve Jobs, often lauded as the “different thinker” who was the most famous fruitarian so far, died of pancreatic cancer. Ashton Kutcher, in preparation for his role in the Steve Jobs film, ate a fruitarian diet for six months and had to stop due to pancreas problems. Additional to pancreas problems, as mentioned in the quote above, sugar converts to fat in the liver, so eating crazy amounts of carbohydrates (the scientific name for sugar, prolific in fruits) will make you gain weight, as you can see for yourself from the number of people seeking help for weight gain in the 30 Bananas a Day forums.

Inadequate dietary fat intake! The main sources of fat in a fruitarian diet are avocado and coconut fat. On the “80/10/10” diet that is referred to by many fruitarians and raw vegans, 80% of the calories are carbohydrates, 10% fats and 10% protein. This produces problems with huge amounts of sugars (carbohydrates is the fancy name for sugars, remember), and insufficient amounts of protein and fat. “Fat” is a blanket term and covers a group of substances, and you need to eat a variety of these, not just two sources. Essential fatty acids are highly difficult to get into a 100% strict fruitarian diet, or a 75% fruitarian, 25% raw vegan one, as these need to come from food sources that don’t exist in these dietary configurations (amendment on January 7th 2015: you can get the correct amounts of essential fatty acids – the two we need are Omega 3 and Omega 6 – from eating a lot of linseeds or supplementing your diet with cold pressed linseed gelatin free capsules – although the companies don’t explain how they make the capsules so these might not be 100% raw-friendly).

Inadequate dietary protein intake! All proteins are not created equal, and it’s an oversimplification to just say “I will get all my protein from nuts.” They are very high in protein (pistachio nuts are one of the highest sources of protein of anything ever) but protein is a collective name for a group of substances made up of amino acids, and it’s the amino acids that you actually need. Saying “there’s protein in nuts” is like saying “there’s vitamins in an orange” both statements are true, but they don’t tell you which protein (or vitamins in the orange) are in the nuts, and this can and does lead to protein deficiencies which can make you lethargic, sluggish, confused and tired. Some amino acids are extremely difficult or impossible to obtain in the fruitarian diet.

High fibre issues! You will shit like a cow in a field for a few weeks until your body gets used to the fibre in all this fruit. It will be watery, smelly and prolific both in frequency and volume. Even then, you will still never shit the same until you change your diet. Fruitarians often explain this discrepancy and the associated digestive issues of bloating and flatulence as “your digestive system changing to attune itself to the fruitarian diet.” I’m not so sure about that, but one thing’s for certain – anything that gives you diarrhea is going to stop you absorbing water, leading to dehydration (which will make it seem like you’re losing weight).

Vitamin deficiencies! There are issues getting enough iron, vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin B12, calcium, zinc, selenium and iodine. Vitamin K is often mentioned, but there are plenty of fruitarian sources although planning is required to obtain adequate intake. Here is a list of fruits containing vitamin K: http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-009104000000000000000-w.html?maxCount=38

Conclusion:

The ideal behind fruitarianism is a very romanticized one, I could imagine a lot of upper class Georgians partaking in it, but it is lacking in a lot of major nutrients and more studies need to be done to find out how this affects the human body over various lengths of time. As a conclusion, I think doing this for any period longer than a few months is not safe, and alternating between this and a less restrictive diet is probably necessary for optimum health. It is certainly not a diet you can get by without seriously thinking about what you eat, and planning every meal carefully to avoid large-scale deficiencies.

Sources on fruitarianism:
http://www.incrediblesmoothies.com/raw-food-diet/faq/are-fruitarian-diets-really-healthy/
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/open-lett/open-letter-f-1a.shtml
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/02/11/all-fruit-diet.aspx

Juicearianism
As extreme diets go, juicearianism is out there. Some people see a diet consisting only of liquids to be the antidote to the wholesale tooth decay problems associated with raw vegan and fruitarian diets. Certainly, the high fibre content of raw vegan and fruitarian foods damage tooth enamel, but the strong acids released from the plant cells when they’re juiced or blended also damage your teeth – in the form of acid erosion. Juicing as a long-term diet solution or incorporating repeated short-term juicing episodes (several days – between 4 and 40 – of only drinking juice) into your regular diet is extremely dangerous.

How it’s different to fruitarianism: It’s vastly different to fruitarianism because, while the fruits are raw, you throw away large parts of the fruit to make juice.  When I first heard about this diet, I just thought people meant that they drank smoothies all the time, I had no idea anyone would try to subsist on fruit juice.  Of all the diets I researched for this article series, juicearianism scored 43 on nutrition, compared to a score of 129 for ovo-vegetarian (dairy free vegetarian).  That’s 1/3 of the nutrients.  That’s not calories, or fat, or anything bad, that was scored purely on the bits that you actually need to take into your body to survive.  Without 2/3 of your basic nutrients, you would become very ill after a few weeks.

The Benefits: Adherents claim they lose weight. Maybe it’s because all their hair falls out (presumably they lose weight because they’re not actually eating anything).

The Drawbacks: EVERYTHING ABOUT THE JUICEARIAN DIET IS STUPID!! I was trying to write this article from an impartial and enquiring minds point of view and every other diet (except breatharianism but that doesn’t really count) I’m discussing in this article series does seem to have some merit to the idealism and philosophy behind it. Juicearianism is just stupid. According to WebMD, the juicing fad leaves you lacking in protein and dietary fibre. This will cause constipation, dizziness and hair loss, all side effects experienced by juicearians, which they pass off as “healing” when caused by juice and “dangerous” when caused by starting to eat real food again.
In the words of the Wall Street Journal: “The question isn’t just whether these techniques work. It’s whether the body is overwhelmed by toxins to begin with.” This for me is the fundamental problem – there’s an assumption that we need to get rid of toxins, and that drinking lots of glasses of fruit juice will accomplish this. It’s all just a ruse to get you to buy a $400 juicer (according to webMD) as part of a $5 billion industry (according to Marie Claire). The consequences of following this diet can be seen in this article about “juicerexia” – which shows how juicing can lead to anorexia: http://www.marieclaire.com/health-fitness/news/a7601/cleansings-dirty-secret/   What is really unfortunate is that the people selling juicers and juice books don’t seem to care that they are making people seriously ill.

Conclusion:
“Healing reactions are very individual. Not everybody will experience the same flare-ups. The more toxic your body, the more severe the reactions may be.”** (see bottom of page about reference)
Because if you get ill from a diet that doesn’t actually provide all the nutrients your body needs, of course it’s your fault not the stupid diet. The double standard given by this website is that, when reintroducing foods, sodium is to be avoided because it will cause nausea and headaches (which are clearly bad) but that headaches and nausea caused by juice isn’t a sign that something’s wrong, it’s a “healing reaction.” I particularly dislike the fact that people are taking it upon themselves to instruct other people in what to eat, but their prose demonstrates clearly that they have no idea whatsoever about nutrition or health, and are supplementing their idiotic rhetoric with a carrot dangled in front of their dupes – that they will lose weight. They don’t even have an idealistic philosophy. And half of the proponents are selling juicers or directly profiting from the sale of juicers. This diet is Darwinism in action.
Disclaimer: If you like juice, great! I have absolutely nothing against fruit juice or using a juicer to make fruit juice (as opposed to juicearianism), however I do strongly believe you should make sure you drink it as part of a balanced diet that includes some actual food of any description. Living off juice for any period of time is dangerous, and will shorten your lifespan.  If I have offended you I hope that it at least provokes you to think again about the safety of what you are doing – and I hope that you do that thinking during a time when you are getting adequate Vitamin B12 intake so you can think clearly about it.

In closing, I’ll leave you with some of the comments by doctors on the whole “juice detox” fad, where people subsist off juice for up to a week – this isn’t even a discussion of long-term juicing – because it’s such a stupid concept.  My bold for emphasis:
“Consuming more vegetables is great, mainstream doctors and nutritionists agree. But they dismiss the detox claims as a confusing jumble of science, pseudoscience and hype. They argue that humans already have a highly efficient system for filtering out most harmful substances—the liver, kidneys and colon.”
“If you’re confused, you understand the issue perfectly,” says Edward Saltzman, an associate professor at Human Nutrition Center on Aging at Tufts University.
“Nobody has ever been able to tell me what these toxins are,” Donald Hensrud, an internist and nutrition specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, says about the myth of “detoxing” and “toxins.”

Peculiarly, the firsthand accounts of people following juicearianism for preposterous lengths of time all end rather abruptly, like this individual, who claimed to do a 92 day juice diet, but presumably had to stop after 17 days, because that’s his last blog entry: http://jimmybraskett.wordpress.com/
This poor fool thought that subsisting on only juice would make her look pretty. Clearly, it wasn’t the cosmetic surgery purchased by the profit the author mentions in the title:
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=983127 Alas, this one, also, ends rather abruptly.

Sources of information on juicearianism:
http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/juicing-health-risks-and-benefits?page=2
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304360704579417170806726140
http://www.marieclaire.com/health-fitness/news/a7601/cleansings-dirty-secret/
**I actually don’t want to tell you where the quote at the start of the conclusion came from, because if I link to it, Google will think it’s more popular, and it’s possibly the stupidest website I’ve ever seen, I’m not sure it was actually written by a person who had any experience with what they were talking about, and I believe they might have just fabricated the entire website for adsense money – there were certainly more adverts than actual content on the site. Copy and paste the quote I used into google if you want to find out where it came from.**