What are the side effects of a Fruitarian Diet?

There are those however, who caution against this kind of a diet. Critics warn about possible long-term negative health effects to fruitarians because of deficiencies in certain vitamins and minerals such as Vitamin B12.  Because the main sources of B12 – meat, eggs and dairy products are absent from a fruitarian diet, and is lost from the preparation of the fruits that do contain it, the proper functioning of the nervous system as well as the normal production of blood cells may be affected. Consequently this deficiency itself in symptoms such as dry skin, brittle hair, gingivitis, lowered red blood cell count and lowered hemoglobin percentage amongst fruitarians. Hyperinsulinism, or the excessive consumption of sugar that is not efficiently burned out from the body may also lead to conditions such as diabetes and hypoglycemic-type symptoms.  As with most types of diets done over an extended period of time, fruitarians may also develop a type of an eating disorder called “orthorexia nervosa” or the pathological obsession to eat only certain kinds of foods while ruling out all others.  Fruitarians, like their vegetarian fellows often run the risk of being ridiculed for their food choices as the terms used lend themselves greatly to common misunderstandings about what kinds of fruits are acceptable to eat and those that are not.

Healthy eating of course takes into consideration the consumption of sufficient amounts of all types of nutrition that one’s body needs.  To this end, those who staunchly advocate a fruitarian diet has come up with a chart to prove that the diet can and does cover all the major food groups such as proteins, fats, starches and sugars with cleverly substituted fruits for generally accepted sources like meat, dairy products and the like.