Fruit is incredible essential to a whole food diet! Choose Your Fruit Wisely is the 18th Challenge in the 21 Weeks to Intentional Health Challenges! If you missed out on the previous challenges, #1 is Health Starts In Your Gut.
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Nutritious Fruit Recipes: Grain Free Cinnamon Apple Hand Pies and Strawberry Vanilla Chia Pudding (which is also grain free & dairy free).
Fruit contains necessary vitamins, fiber and antioxidants that all contribute to excellent health. You’ll often see “heart-healthy” and “lowers cholesterol” benefits associated with eating fruit.
One concern associated with fruit is it’s sugar content. This sugar is also known as natural fructose. Natural fructose is fine for our health when eaten in moderation.
Choose Your Fruit Wisely Challenge
- 10 Types of Fruit with the Lowest Sugar Content
- Nutrient Powerhouse Fruit
- Best way to consume fruit
- Challenge: Chose to eat a variety of fruit throughout your week.
10 Types of Fruit with the Lowest Sugar Content
When you’re watching your sugar intake, it’s hard to eat fruit every day. I am going to list 10 types of fruit that have 10 grams or less of sugar. We’ll start with fruit lowest in sugar. I’ll list the fruit, it’s sugar content and a couple attributes known to this fruit.
Avocado: 1 gram in one avocado. Great source of healthy fats.
Lemons/Limes: 2 grams per lemon. High in vitamin C and natural cleanser.
Cranberries: 4 grams in 1 cup. High in potassium, B6, and Vitamin C.
Blackberries: 4-5 grams in 1 cup. Excellent fiber and antioxidant.
Raspberries: 5 grams in 1 cup. High in fiber and antioxidant.
Strawberries: 6 grams in 1 cup. Known for fiber, potassium and folate.
Kiwis: 6 grams in 1 cup. High vitamin C, K, E, folate and potassium.
Tangerine: 9 grams per fruit. Excellent source of Vitamin A, C, and flavonoids.
Grapefruit: 9 grams in 1/2 fruit. Vitamin C, A and fiber.
Watermelon: 10 grams per cup. 92% water with vitamins A, B6, C and amino acids.
I just love all those attributes! And I learned a new fact today. Watermelon contains essential amino acids!
Incorporating fruit lower in sugar in our diet is less strain on our immune system, and keeps our blood sugar level moderate.
6 Nutrient Powerhouse Fruit
The following 6 types of fruit have been associated with reducing the risk of disease and illness. You’ll notice most of them have high antioxidant qualities which is exactly what are body needs as we age and live life!
- Cherries: contain a high supply of antioxidants. They also have a compound that reduces inflammation symptoms in our body. Cherries enhance our memory. Tart cherries have been known to help your quality of sleep.
- Grapefruit: low in calories and rich in antioxidants. They have significant amount of fiber, vitamins, and minerals.
- Acai Berries: known as a superfood for it’s medicinal properties and high antioxidant content. They are an energy booster and even increase brain function.
- Apples: “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”. The apple is known for high antioxidants, fiber, vitamins A, E, B1, B6, and trace minerals such as manganese, and copper. The compound quercitin in apples helps to regulate histamines levels in our body and reducing inflammation.
- Blueberries: this little berry is known to boost our memory. Blueberries pack quite a few nutrients including folate, vitamin C, Vitamin B6, potassium and fiber. This delicious berry gets the award for the highest antioxidant levels of common fruit.
- Cantaloupe: just one cup of this fruit provides us with vitamins B6, vitamin K and minerals such as folate, magnesium, and potassium.
Note: Three types of fruit from the above list contain pesticide levels found on the “dirty dozen list”. This means that conventional grown cherries, blueberries, and apples contain more pesticides than is healthy for our body. When looking for apples and berries, buy from a local farmer or look for the organic label.
Best Way to Consume Fruit
We have 4 common ways we consume fruit:
- fresh
- frozen
- dehydrated
- freeze dried
Which way delivers the most nutrition to my body? FRESH FRUIT
Fresh fruit will contain the most nutrients, with frozen fruit coming in as a close second. You’ll benefit from the vitamins, minerals and water content of fresh and frozen fruit.
Which way contains more calories and sugar? DEHYDRATED FRUIT
Dehydrated fruit has the water removed to allow the fruit to be preserved and make it portable. The concerns of eating dehydrated fruit is it’s dense with calories and sugar. Two big concerns with dehydrated fruit is the extra refined sugars are added and the sulfur added to help keep it’s color.
Freeze-dried fruit also has the water removed by “freezing” the fruit under low pressure. Like traditional freezing, it preserves nutrients however it also increase the sugar content.
My favorite online store to buy freeze-dried fruit is Thrive Market.
Choose Your Fruit Wisely Challenge
Writing about fruit makes me want to go buy more fruit! This was a fun topic to write about, and I hope you learned a bit more about the nutritional value of fruit.
Challenge: Plan to eat a variety of fruit this week. Keep in mind that we need to eat it modestly due to it’s sugar content. Choose several different types of fruit to consume this week. Have fun shopping for fruit!
Share your challenge one of 4 ways; by commenting below, commenting on my Facebook page, Instagram page or email me your acceptance. Use #accept21weekhealthchallenge on your social media comments.
Pursing Better Health Together,