I have been enjoying the fruit thread quite a bit and find it refreshing
that there is such a forum for this discussion. Frutarians and traditional
hygienists often consider any talk about the problems of fruit heretical
and I am glad no one started bashing.

I have no doubt that modern fruit can be overconsumed. Even the instinctos
recommend that fruit be eaten only until it doesn't taste deliscious
anymore (and to eat veggies until they taste unpleasant). This is supposed
to offset the  difference in composition between wild and cultivated fruits
(which have more water and sugar, less of everything else except
pesticides, than wild fruit).

A comment and a question:

Comment: Having lived for many months on fruit alone in Thailand I found
few of the problems to the degree that Ward and Bob have mentioned but I
did find that fruit wasn't satisfying in for many-month stretches. This
easily leads to over-eating and the generally unformed undigested stool
which was mentioned. On a fruit-only diet one's body is forced to get all
its nutrients (including scant protien/minerals/fats) from huge amounts of
fruit. Doesn't work, of course. In any case, we would crave animal foods
and veggies and eventually feast on them in the USA when we returned during
the summer school break. My point is this: Perhaps the over consumption of
fruit is the result of a lack of animal foods. I find that when fruits lose
their ability to satisfy (but still taste OK enough to (over)eat), I
usually have a strong taste for animal foods. After eating some meat or
seafood for a couple days, the fruit returns to delicious/satisfying and
paradoxically I eat less fruit (since it's taste change is more pronounced
as well).

Question: I could care less about veggies. Except for tomatoes, cukes, red
peppers, and avos (all of which are technically fruit), I would only miss
celery and lettuce if I never ate another vegetable again. For all one
hears about how great kale and chard and cabbage and spinach and sprouts
are for you, about how nutritious the charts show them to be, I have rarely
been attracted to more than a few mouthfuls. Root veggies are OK but pretty
boring and sometimes gassy. And these are easy-to-eat domesticated
versions. Try eating raw veggies from a tropical market sometime--straight,
unspiced, and unmixed. They are _strongly_ flavored and hardly ever tasty
to me for more than a mouthful. Or try eating wild vegetation! Pretty
strong stuff. My question: all this one hears about eating one's veggies
(even from the instinctos)--how come they taste so lame? We have taken to
eating salads of mixed raw veggies simply to keep them interesting. Mixing
has it's own subtle problems, but I wonder about simply giving up on the
damn veggies. The fruit/veggies I do enjoy (though they should be as
"problematic" as a mango as far as being too easy to eat, no?), but aside
from the delights of celery and lettuce, I wouldn't "instinctively" eat
more than a few dozen carrots a year, maybe a qaurter of a beet per month.

Why shouldn't I get along great on fruits and animal foods?

Cheers,
Kirt