Something that I have been thinking about for some time: is fruit easy
to digest, or hard to digest? This is a more complex question than it
appears to be. Some background information:

1) Some fruits, like prunes (a dried fruit) and papaya, have a laxative effect
and pass through the system quickly - they come out looking the same as they
did when they went in. It seems we don't digest or assimilate such fruit, we
extract some water from it and then quickly expel it from our bodies.

2) Most other fruits (juicy fruits) pass through the digestive system quickly,
and the stool they produce is often watery and loose. Visual inspection of the
stool suggests it has changed little in its passage through the body.

3) The effect described in #2 is enhanced after one has been on a fruitarian
diet for a long time. Traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, and other
holistic systems claim that a high water diet, like fruit, will decrease
digestive fire in time. I have personally observed this effect in myself,
and have heard others report the same effect. One of the results of a long-term
fruitarian diet is reduced digestive efficiency: whatever you eat passes
through you with little effect, and comes out looking just like it did
when it went it.

4) It is undeniable that fruit is a heavy food, due to its high water content.
If you overeat of juicy fruit, you will certainly feel the heaviness.

5) Some fruitarians habitually overeat (due to sugar addiction and the fact
that their diet is nutritionally deficient). However, despite overeating,
many fruitarians are emaciated, with weight at anorexic levels. This suggests
that the fruit passes through them, but they absorb little nourishment
(calories and vitamins) from the food. In effect, they don't seem to digest
or assimilate the fruit!

So this leads me to the opinion that fruit appears to be easy to digest,
because it passes through the system quickly with few immediate side-effects
(other than promoting sugar addiction), but it is hard to digest in the sense
that it is: 1) heavy, 2) high water and decreases digestive fire, and 3) the
body assimilates very little calories or nourishment from it.  That is, juicy
fruits appear to be easy to digest, but in reality are hard to digest and
assimilate.

Comments, criticisms on the above are welcome.

Regards,
Tom Billings
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