When is the best time to eat fruits?

Tips and Hints for Eating Fruit 'til Noon

1. When first awakening in the morning, it is beneficial to drink a glass of water to wash through the digestive tract. This can have a squeeze of lemon in it or not.

2. All fruit and fruit juice must be fresh. Nothing cooked, canned or processed in any way. Nothing pasteurized.

3. You can have as much or as little as you desire up until noon. Some people are fine with only a small amount of fruit and desire no more. Others want to “graze” all morning on different fruits and juice. Either is fine. Figure out what is best for you and do that.

4. Fruits such as bananas, raisins, dates and all dried fruits (figs, pineapple, mango, papaya, apples, apricots) are more concentrated and will stay in your stomach longer than the watery fruits, so you will feel full longer. It is essential, however, to not eat fruit dried with chemicals such as sulfur nitrite. Eat only naturally dried fruit. It will say on the package if it is sun-dried or dehydrated or if it contains sulfur nitrite, or your grocer will be able to tell you. Health-food stores usually have naturally dried fruit. Also food dehydrators have become popular as of late. They are inexpensive and valuable far beyond their cost. Since dried fruit is concentrated versus fresh fruit, which has a higher water content, it is extremely important that you only eat very small amounts of dried fruit. The bulk of what you eat should be the high-water-content fruits. As you know, you may have as much fresh fruit as you desire, but dried fruit, unlike fresh fruit, can be overeaten.

5. Some people want to know if it's all right to have nothing in the morning except water. Yes. What you are trying to do is not interfere with the elimination cycle with food that requires digestion. But unless you are one of the minuscule number of people who simply do not like to eat fruit, it is important that you eat some fruit every day, and in the morning is when you can be sure there is nothing else in the stomach that will cause fruit to spoil.

6. After drinking juice, which is primarily water, you can eat other foods after about ten to fifteen minutes have elapsed. After eating whole fruit or a smoothie [see next page], wait about thirty to forty minutes before eating other food. After eating bananas, raisins or dried fruit, you should wait about forty minutes. Once you have eaten something other than fruit, you should wait at least three hours before eating fruit or drinking juice again. The only exception to this is that if you have raw vegetables by themselves without dressing or dip, fruit can then be eaten about twenty to thirty minutes later. If you wish to have fruit as a snack or at night before bed, be sure that at least three hours elapse after eating anything cooked and about one and a half to two hours after eating a salad.

A smoothie is made by putting into a blender chunks of frozen bananas (freeze peeled bananas in an air-tight container), fresh apple or orange juice, and whatever fresh or frozen fruit you like, such as strawberries, blueberries or other berries, peaches, etc. It blends into a delicious shake. Its thickness depends on the amount of bananas used. Some people like the bananas at room temperature-it's just a matter of taste. Experiment with these; they are delicious and fun. A day rarely passes that I don't have one of these treats.

7. Whenever drinking juice (or a smoothie), it is extremely important that you do not gulp it down. It should be consumed slowly. Drinking a glass of orange juice in two big gulps is not good for you and can cause your stomach to become upset. Take only one mouthful. Swish it around in your mouth one time to mix it with saliva and then swallow. In other words, “chew” your juice. This is not a small matter. Drink your juices slowly; do not gulp them down.

8. The question often comes up if it is all right to continue having juice after noon, or whether it is necessary to eat something else at twelve o'clock. No, it is not necessary to eat something other than fruit at noon, unless you are hungry for something else. Many people, myself included, on numerous occasions have only fruit and fruit juice until the evening meal. Sometimes you simply won't feel like eating anything other than fruit, and you should not feel you must eat if you are not hungry. As you progress with this, there will even be days when you have only fruit and fruit juice the entire day. It's a totally natural thing; sometimes you just won't feel like eating. Those are truly super-high-energy days. As time goes by, and you become more familiar with eating fruit correctly, you will find there are a multitude of ways to provide your body with fruit. It's something that automatically happens and becomes clear to you over time. For now you should focus on having fruit exclusively 'til noon, and the rest will unfold and become familiar to you as a natural progression.

source taken from: http://www.enotalone.com/