Fresh and tasty, nutritious and tasty: fruit is essential in our diet. But when is the right time to eat it?
Let’s face it, this is a common question for many. There fruit it is a real delicacy: fresh, sweet, tasty, but also nutritious, a real panacea for the body. And, the nice thing is that every season gives us different, genuine products to be savored in all their goodness. Many, however, have a common doubt: when is the best time to consume it? Before meals? During? After or far? We have all asked ourselves this question: let us therefore try to clarify.
Of course, everyone is free to do as they please. Much depends, certainly, also on the lifestyle, the time available, the type of commitments one has during the day. To try, however, to answer the question, it is first of all necessary to understand something more about this type of much-loved food.
The doubt common to many: when is it better to eat fruit?
In reality, rather than a problem of consumption in conjunction with other foods for a question of nutrients, it is necessary to understand how fruit influences digestion. Or rather, how digestion works on the different foods we eat. In this way, it will become easier to understand why, more often than not, we are advised to consume fruit away from meals, as a simple snack.
Each nutrient needs its own time and its own “environment” in the stomach so that it can be assimilated and disposed of. Carbohydrates, for example, need acidity, fats need alkalinity. Fruit, on the other hand, usually consists mainly of sugars. Which are assimilated and digested very quickly.
When we go to eat a fruit immediately after a meal rich and complete in other nutrients, therefore carbohydrates, fats, proteins and so on, since the latter need more time to be digested, we will obtain as a consequence a permanence of the aforementioned fruit longer in the stomach and intestines.
This is because our body will have to first digest what we have introduced previously. This could lead to feeling bloated, general heaviness, in short, a “slowdown” or in any case a nuisance to the natural digestive function. This is why many nutritionists suggest eating fruit as a snack, mid-morning and in the afternoon.