Thoughts on this guy's YouTube channel?

[Mom+Me]

Hi there,

I don't get a lot of time online, but the little bit I've been on YouTube, these videos keep popping up by a 72 year old vegan who's basically a low-fat fruitarian (https://m.youtube.com/user/MrTomsTunes). I've only seen about 3 of his videos, but he eats and drinks tons of raw fruit. For instance this one video he said he drank 64 ounces of fresh squeezed Valencia orange juice and then had a fruit smoothie bowl, etc..

Though I admire his zest for life and sharing this health message, my thoughts are that he's healthy in spite of all of the fruit (especially his homemade juices and smoothies), and that his good health and trim physique are due to not consuming all the SAD junk.

I can't help but think about how he could be injuring his endothelial lining with all that fruit (especially juices), even though fruit is natural...and what about the risk for fatty liver disease?!

Don't worry, the McDougall Plan is for me! Just wondered if any of you have come across his channel and what your thoughts are?

[DynoDan]

Reminiscent of Thor Heyerdahl’s ‘honeymoon year’ (isolated on an uninhabited south pacific island without adequate food stocks). Lots of wild fruit, but lack of essential fatty acids will catch up to you eventually.

[QubitBob]

Don't worry, the McDougall Plan is for me!

Same here--Dr. McDougall's plan makes the most sense to me, and I've read a tremendous amount of material about nutrition and diets over the last 22 years.

However, while I had not run across the videos you had posted about, I have seen videos on YouTube and elsewhere about other individuals who have successfully lived on vegan fruit-centric diets for many years and are apparently healthy and happy. The one which sticks in my mind was a woman who, if I remember correctly, lives in Australia. The reason I remember her story was seeing that she had a number of storage shelves in her home piled high with all the fruit she eats in a week. I remember thinking that the logistics required for a "fruitarian" lifestyle are absolutely crazy.

...and what about the risk for fatty liver disease?!

Can you please elaborate on this? Why would a person who consumes a large amount of fruit be in danger of fatty liver disease?

[barryoilbegone]

Don't worry, the McDougall Plan is for me!

Same here--Dr. McDougall's plan makes the most sense to me, and I've read a tremendous amount of material about nutrition and diets over the last 22 years.

However, while I had not run across the videos you had posted about, I have seen videos on YouTube and elsewhere about other individuals who have successfully lived on vegan fruit-centric diets for many years and are apparently healthy and happy. The one which sticks in my mind was a woman who, if I remember correctly, lives in Australia. The reason I remember her story was seeing that she had a number of storage shelves in her home piled high with all the fruit she eats in a week. I remember thinking that the logistics required for a "fruitarian" lifestyle are absolutely crazy.

...and what about the risk for fatty liver disease?!

Can you please elaborate on this? Why would a person who consumes a large amount of fruit be in danger of fatty liver disease?

There is the sugar form fructose in fruits. In small - medium amounts, and if someone is getting the bulk of their calories from glucose (starches!), fructose will be usually be converted mostly to glucose. However, if there are very large amounts of fructose from the likes of fruit and/or metabolic vulnerabilities for someone in their liver, they can convert fructose more easily to fat. if this builds up over time, it can cause fatty liver disease in the vulnerable.

This possibly is one part of the reason why some raw foodists and fruitarians do poorly, as the primary fuel of humans is glucose, not fructose.

Given their benefits with fibre, antioxidants etc. people should probably be consuming on average more fruit than they actually do, important to stress - the general SAD diet population more so obviously, than plant only (and principally starch) consumers.

Hope that helps!

[Taggart]

This I cut and pasted from the True North Center website, but it was posted twelve years ago.

Problems with all-fruit diets

Fruit is more concentrated, providing about 300 calories per pound. Large quantities of fruit could provide adequate calories, but such a diet would be very high in sugar and low in minerals, which would eventually lead to health problems for many, if not most, people. The patients I have seen who have eaten predominantly raw fruit diets for any length of time often develop multiple health problems including difficulties with teeth, gums, skin, immune system, and nervous system. Increased emotional volatility, fatigue, recurrent fungal, yeast, bacterial, and viral infections are also common.

https://www.healthpromoting.com/category/diet

[Mom+Me]

Reminiscent of Thor Heyerdahl’s ‘honeymoon year’ (isolated on an uninhabited south pacific island without adequate food stocks). Lots of wild fruit, but lack of essential fatty acids will catch up to you eventually.

Hi DynoDan,

Thank you for your thoughts. I apologize for not responding sooner. I'm not familiar with the book/movie (?) you mentioned. I agree with you. If this man ate nothing but fruit, he could have deficiencies, but I think he'll probably be okay with the essential fatty acids because he includes a small amount of nuts and seeds. Just wonder how sustainable it'll be for him. I guess he's had period of times in his journey of eating some cooked vegetables and starches. I just think it's way too much fruit, especially in the form of juices and smoothies.

[Mom+Me]

Don't worry, the McDougall Plan is for me!

Same here--Dr. McDougall's plan makes the most sense to me, and I've read a tremendous amount of material about nutrition and diets over the last 22 years.

However, while I had not run across the videos you had posted about, I have seen videos on YouTube and elsewhere about other individuals who have successfully lived on vegan fruit-centric diets for many years and are apparently healthy and happy. The one which sticks in my mind was a woman who, if I remember correctly, lives in Australia. The reason I remember her story was seeing that she had a number of storage shelves in her home piled high with all the fruit she eats in a week. I remember thinking that the logistics required for a "fruitarian" lifestyle are absolutely crazy.

...and what about the risk for fatty liver disease?!

Can you please elaborate on this? Why would a person who consumes a large amount of fruit be in danger of fatty liver disease?

QuitBob,

Thank you for writing; I appreciate it! I apologize for not getting back to you sooner.

It's always great to hear people like yourself who are McDougallers for life and who have continued to research nutrition. It's so nice that Dr. McDougall's recommendations from decades ago still stands, is solid information, and not a fad.

The whole fatty liver thing is new to me and I have not yet had time to research it myself, but I have heard about it from a couple sources. The main one is from a friend of mine who is a McDougaller (met her via this Forum ) and she talks about Dr. Robert Lustig's work on the subject of fatty liver disease.

For now, what barryoilbegone said above makes a whole lot of sense to me.

[Mom+Me]

Don't worry, the McDougall Plan is for me!

Same here--Dr. McDougall's plan makes the most sense to me, and I've read a tremendous amount of material about nutrition and diets over the last 22 years.

However, while I had not run across the videos you had posted about, I have seen videos on YouTube and elsewhere about other individuals who have successfully lived on vegan fruit-centric diets for many years and are apparently healthy and happy. The one which sticks in my mind was a woman who, if I remember correctly, lives in Australia. The reason I remember her story was seeing that she had a number of storage shelves in her home piled high with all the fruit she eats in a week. I remember thinking that the logistics required for a "fruitarian" lifestyle are absolutely crazy.

...and what about the risk for fatty liver disease?!

Can you please elaborate on this? Why would a person who consumes a large amount of fruit be in danger of fatty liver disease?

There is the sugar form fructose in fruits. In small - medium amounts, and if someone is getting the bulk of their calories from glucose (starches!), fructose will be usually be converted mostly to glucose. However, if there are very large amounts of fructose from the likes of fruit and/or metabolic vulnerabilities for someone in their liver, they can convert fructose more easily to fat. if this builds up over time, it can cause fatty liver disease in the vulnerable.

This possibly is one part of the reason why some raw foodists and fruitarians do poorly, as the primary fuel of humans is glucose, not fructose.

Given their benefits with fibre, antioxidants etc. people should probably be consuming on average more fruit than they actually do, important to stress - the general SAD diet population more so obviously, than plant only (and principally starch) consumers.

Hope that helps!

barryoilbegone,

Thanks so much for your wonderful explanation; it makes a lot of sense!

So yeah, it sounds like the man from his YouTube channel is definitely over-doing the fruit. And I've heard that thin people can have fatty liver disease just as much as overweight people, so he definitely could be in trouble down the road. Hope not.

[Mom+Me]

This I cut and pasted from the True North Center website, but it was posted twelve years ago.

Problems with all-fruit diets

Fruit is more concentrated, providing about 300 calories per pound. Large quantities of fruit could provide adequate calories, but such a diet would be very high in sugar and low in minerals, which would eventually lead to health problems for many, if not most, people. The patients I have seen who have eaten predominantly raw fruit diets for any length of time often develop multiple health problems including difficulties with teeth, gums, skin, immune system, and nervous system. Increased emotional volatility, fatigue, recurrent fungal, yeast, bacterial, and viral infections are also common.

https://www.healthpromoting.com/category/diet

Wow, Taggert, that is very eye-opening information; thank you for posting it! Yeah, this only confirmed my suspicions but goes into great detail about actually why with the risks and outcomes about which I was unfamiliar. So thank you for enlightening us!

[Reed Mueller]

This I cut and pasted from the True North Center website, but it was posted twelve years ago.

Problems with all-fruit diets

Fruit is more concentrated, providing about 300 calories per pound. Large quantities of fruit could provide adequate calories, but such a diet would be very high in sugar and low in minerals, which would eventually lead to health problems for many, if not most, people. The patients I have seen who have eaten predominantly raw fruit diets for any length of time often develop multiple health problems including difficulties with teeth, gums, skin, immune system, and nervous system. Increased emotional volatility, fatigue, recurrent fungal, yeast, bacterial, and viral infections are also common.

https://www.healthpromoting.com/category/diet

Wow, Taggert, that is very eye-opening information; thank you for posting it! Yeah, this only confirmed my suspicions but goes into great detail about actually why with the risks and outcomes about which I was unfamiliar. So thank you for enlightening us!

It's actually incorrect. I know 100's of Raw fruitarians that have been doing this for decades and are extremely healthy. Most fruitarians also consume some vegetables and leafy greens but even if they didn't you'll get an abundance of vitamins, minerals and even above the FDA of Protein off of just fruits alone. Likely more vitamins, minerals than a low fat, high starch diet only but a high starch diet is much cheaper and way easier to follow and also has all you need. I'm not saying one diet is better than the other, just that they both work and can have great macronutrient ratio's. The only thing people usually add is B12 but that's also with this diet. You could add salt, D comes from the Sun.

I made this typical 3000 a day calorie diet on Cronometer with common fruits so you can see the vitamins and minerals and even surpassed th 56 Gram FDA for protein on just fruit.. Also these World record holders (senior citizens) couple (64 yrs and 68 yrs old) ran over 9,000 miles (366 Marathons in one year) setting a world record eating just raw fruit and vegetables and gave up on cooked food like pasta and rice 12 years before the 366 marathons. If it's so https://www.smh.com.au/national/couple- ... 302sf.html

I'm just pointing out that if you add in 3000 calories of raw fruits alone or 3000 calories of raw fruits with some vegetables mixed in or not and they will usually give you an abundance of vitamins and minerals. More than your body needs and is likely reason these seniors could run 366 marathons back to back without their body's getting destroyed. Their diet was massive anti-inflammatory and allowed very quick repairs each day so they could run another marathon. I did this for 6 years and was ridding 10,000 miles a year climbing 270,000 verticle feet a year with a total weight over over 300 pounds with me, my bike and gear. Try cronometer here to see: https://cronometer.com

Cronometer Image 1: https://ibb.co/G0sDyHq
Cronometer Image 2: https://ibb.co/k2dsVdc

[DynoDan]

Reminiscent of Thor Heyerdahl’s ‘honeymoon year’ (isolated on an uninhabited south pacific island without adequate food stocks). Lots of wild fruit, but lack of essential fatty acids will catch up to you eventually.

Hi DynoDan,
I'm not familiar with the book/movie (?) you mentioned. I agree with you. If this man ate nothing but fruit, he could have deficiencies, but I think he'll probably be okay with the essential fatty acids because he includes a small amount of nuts and seeds.

BTW: Read Heyerdahl’s (1st) book many years ago (curious now, so might track it down to read again), about his naive adventure (assumed that surviving on wild plants alone would be easy). After a year of being thoroughly starved of fat, he and his bride finally gorged themselves on a roasted pig.