The Impossible Guide To Fruit

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about fruit. Let’s go.

The Fruit Index

1. What Is Fruit?
2. List of Fruits
3. Fructose & How It Works
4. Best Fruit Choices
5. Worst Fruit Choices
6. So Should I Eat It?
7. References & Sources
8. Types of Fruit
9. Fruit Videos

What Is Fruit?

This is a more complicated question than you might realize. It’s a little difficult to define what is a fruit and what is not. Because of this, some foods can be confusing. Tomatoes, eggplants, and bell peppers are commonly thought of as vegetables but they’re technically fruits. On the other hand, strawberries and pineapples are technically vegetables (they’re categorized as “false fruits”), but are generally considered fruits by the general public.

Fruit is the edible pulp or fleshy layer around a seed. A vegetable is any edible part of a plant, for example leaves, roots, tubers, and stalks.

List of Fruits

• Apple
• Apricot
• Avocado
• Banana
• Breadfruit
• Bilberry
• Blackberry
• Blackcurrant
• Blueberry
• Currant
• Cherry
• Cherimoya
• Clementine
• Coconut
• Date
• Damson
• Dragonfruit
• Durian
• Eggplant
• Elderberry
• Feijoa
• Fig
• Gooseberry
• Grape
• Grapefruit
• Guava
• Huckleberry
• Honeydew
• Jackfruit
• Jettamelon
• Jambul
• Kiwi fruit
• Kumquat
• Legume
• Lemon
• Lime
• Loquat
• Lychee
• Mandarine
• Mango
• Melon
• Canary melon
• Cantaloupe
• Honeydew
• Watermelon
• Rock melon
• Nectarine
• Nut
• Orange
• Peach
• Pear
• Persimmon
• Williams pear or Bartlett pear
• Physalis
• Plum/prune (dried plum)
• Pineapple
• Pomegranate
• Pomelo
• Purple Mangosteen
• Raspberry
• Western raspberry (blackcap)
• Rambutan
• Redcurrant
• Salal berry
• Satsuma
• Star fruit
• Strawberry
• Tangerine
• Tomato
• Ugli fruit
• Watermelon–see melon
• Ziziphus mauritiana

Fructose & How It Works

Fructose is a simple sugar found naturally in many fruits as well as in root vegetables and flowers. It’s absorbed directly into the blood stream. While, technically, the formula is identical to glucose, it differs in it’s structure.

Its relative high level of sweetness and the fact that fructose does not trigger the same satiety hormones that glucose does, make it easy to overeat with fruit. For those reasons, we recommend that you limit the quantities of fruit you consume.

Best Fruit Choices (lowest sugar content)

• Berries
• Cherries
• Apples
• Grapefruits
• Apricots
• Peaches

Worst Choices (highest sugar content)

• Melons
• Mangoes
• Pineapples
• Oranges
• Overly ripe bananas

So Should I Eat It?

Bottom line: fruits are amazing. But it’s extremely easy to eat a lot of them and they tend to be packed with sugar. If you are going to indulge, try to stick to some of the better choices we mentioned above (berries, apples, and grapefruit) and stay away from some of the worst ones (you should be able to tell which ones these are right away – they’re the super sweet ones).

References & Sources

• Fruit – Wikipedia
• List of Fruits – Wikipedia
• Identification Of Major Fruit Types – Wayne’s Word
• Low-Carb Fruit List: The Best and the Worst Fruits – About.com
• The Best Low-Carb Fruits (And The Worst) – Mark’s Daily Apple

Types of Fruit

We were going to include this section a little higher up but it got a little geeky. We thought it was still interesting, so we’ve included it here at the bottom for those of you who are interested.

The different types of fruit can become quite overwhelming. We’ll do our best to keep it simple. Here are the main types of fruits:

• Berry – Entire fruit is fleshy and edible, although the skin may be tough (avocado/kiwi)
• Pepo – A berry with a hard, thick rind (watermelon/cantelope)
• Hesperidium – A berry with a leather rind/skin (orange/grapefruit)
• Drupe – A berry with a hard “pit” surrounding the seed (mango/coconut)
• Pome – A fruit with a fleshy tissue and a “core” that is generally not eaten (apples/pears)
• Aggregate fruit – A cluster of fruits produced from a single flower (blackberries/raspberries)
• Multiple fruits – Multiple ripened fruits produced by a cluster of flowers coming from the same stem (pineapple/jackfruit)

Note #1: legumes are technically considered a “dry fruit”
Note #2: nuts are technically a “one seeded fruit” enclosed in a husk

Fruit Videos

Honestly, there are not a lot of videos out there about fruit. That said, we found a couple that we thought you’d enjoy (even if they’re not strictly related to nutrition!).

Fruit Ninja in Real Life

Annoying Orange: Passion of the Fruit