Fruitarianism: The Ultimate Diet
By Rynn Berry



Where do you get your protein? Don't you find it difficult to eat out? What do you eat? Do these questions sound familiar? Many of the same incredulous questions posed by meat-eaters to vegetarians, are asked of "fruitarians" by vegetarians. The aptly-named Rynn Berry explores the world of raw food.

A growing number of vegetarians have chucked the sautéed eggplant and batter-fried zucchini to become fruitarians -- those who eat only raw foods, predominantly fruit (80 percent of the diet), along with raw vegetables, soaked grains and unprocessed nuts -- and they are eloquent in defense of their diet. Robert Kole, an instructor at Queens College, told me that as a fruitarian he enjoys an immense surge of energy that lasts through the day and requires fewer hours of sleep every night. As a vegan, he used to catch the occasional cold, but he hasn't had so much as a case of sniffles since becoming a fruitarian. Didn't he miss cooked food? He did confess to a few mild cravings, but when he remembered how much better he felt on his raw food diet, he stifled his regrets.

Kole doesn't eat bread. "It's been baked, kneaded, yeasted, et cetera. All the original ingredients have been refined and cooked out of it. In Western cuisine, we took out the good stuff and cook in the bad stuff. Nuts that have been roasted in oil and salted are terrible for you, whereas raw, unsalted nuts are great. Cooked fruit and fried vegetables lose their natural goodness. Even pasta is too far removed from its natural state. The grains have been turned into a paste, then dried and cooked again before eating."

Kole eschews spices as well. "When you cook the flavor out of foods, you have to put spices on top of the cooked foods. If you just eat the natural raw food with its innate favor and goodness, you don't need spices."

Zsuzsa Blakely is an aspiring opera singer. With an occasional lapse into eating cooked grains (for which she has an irrepressible craving), she's been a fruitarian for three years. Typically, she has a fruit smoothie for breakfast, for lunch a green salad with cucumber, tomatoes, and red pepper dressed with a salsa-tahini sauce of her own devising, and for dinner she may have apples, dates, and fresh almonds or pistachios. Being a fruitarian, she says, has not restricted her social life. She takes a fruit salad with her to work and when she meets friends at restaurants she takes along some nuts and a few pieces of dried fruit to round out the meal.

Zsuzsa has no trouble maintaining her weight and feels that fruitarians reach a homeostasis after they've cleansed themselves on the diet. For Zsuzsa, eating vegetables was a transitional diet between flesh-eating and the "ideal diet," fruitarianism. She believes that vegetables are sentient beings who experience pain. We may not be able to hear their screams, but in uprooting them and cutting them down we are accomplices in their destruction. Fruitarians, Zsuzsa believes, are agents of the fruit trees' propagation. In return for scattering their seeds, trees provide us with the oxygen we breathe and the food we need to sustain ourselves.

Francisco Martin, President of the Vegan Society of Spain, has been a fruitarian for 10 years. Although he initially became a fruitarian by accident when he joined the raw food line at a vegetarian conference (!), he found the food to his taste and felt an end to sluggishness and a surge of energy. While he admits that it would be more difficult to practice fruitarianism in cold climates, he has visited rawfoodists in Finland and Lithuania who were remarkably resourceful in living on dried fruits, soaked grains and roots. Francisco told me that the diet's simplicity appealed to him. When he felt hungry, he said, he didn't have to waste time washing, chopping, and cooking. With fruit, he just plucks, peels, and eats.

Iranian fruitarian, Mr. Javad, believes that humans are "frugivores" who should take their sustenance from fruit trees. Fruits, he argues, are formed from the tree's root system and direct sunlight to create a powerful energy packet. He never tires of his diet. Twenty-five years ago, while in Iran, he started as a rawfood vegan. Then, for a time, he was a rawfood vegan and a fitful fruitarian. Finally, three years ago, he became a full-blown fruitarian. At 59, he easily looks 20 years younger. For exercise, he climbs mountains and takes endless hikes, but says he never feels tired.

Perhaps the most memorable fruitarian I have met is Arne Winqvist. Now 78, he's been a vegetarian since the 1930s, although he regrets every year he spent eating cooked vegetables. He became a fruitarian rawfoodist at 63, and since then has renewed vigor and vitality. "Once you've started on this kind of diet, you don't want to eat anything else, because fruit is the best food there is," Arne says.

"Unlike with steak and other meats, our body uses little energy to digest fruits. Besides, fruit helps us efficiently get rid of harmful by-products of the digestive process like uric acid, which we flush out when we sweat or urinate." Three years ago, Winqvist started entering long distance races. His stamina is indefatigable and he hasn't had a cold since he converted to raw food fruitarianism. "Living cells should be nourished by living food. If we put raw potatoes in the ground, they'll grow. But if we do the same with boiled potatoes, they'll just rot."

Rynn Berry is the author of Famous Vegetarians and Their Favorite Recipes and the forthcoming Food for the Gods: Vegetarianism and the World's Religions. Copies of Famous Vegetarians, which contains a profile of fruitarian Dick Gregory, may be ordered for $17.95 postpaid from the author at 159 Eastern Parkway, #2H, Brooklyn, NY 11238.