----- Original Message -----
From: "NancyO" <[log in to unmask]>


> Being fairly new to the Paleo lifestyle, could someone please explain the
role that fruit plays? I keep getting a lot of varying information. Cordain
says you can eat as much as you like of anything 'legal'. Many folks on this
list seem to eat very little fruit. Did someone said something about
'fructose' raising triglycerides?

Fruit is okay for some and not for others. My understanding is that some
sugars are efficiently converted into fats (triglycerides) and shuttled into
cells to be used or stored. Plus higher levels of sugar in the blood will
increase insulin levels. Without corresponding protein to stimulate
production of glucogon, this could contribute to hyperinsulinemia over time.

I would go very easy on the fruit. Remember paleo principles: our forbears
would not have had continual access to fruits all year round. And the fruits
they did have were nowhere as big and overly sweet as we have today.

I look at fruit as an occasional treat. I will have one piece of fruit now
and then, perhaps after dinner or lunch as a dessert, and many days I do not
have any fruit.

Today's fruit plays too much with your blood sugar and could be an inferior
substitute for not getting enough high quality carbs from tubers and roots.

I have posted on this before, but I think a lot of paleo dieters confuse
paleo with low carb. Many of us need to keep our carb intake so as not to be
in ketosis.  Continuous fruit consumption is not a good answer for me. I
have found that eating some tubers or roots every day at dinner keeps me
from getting extreme cravings.

Tubers and roots have starch which replenishes glycogen stores, but fruit
sugar apparently does not do this.

--Richard