Should you eat cherries and waterrmelon?

Semi typical bbq spread

As summer approaches, one of the food perks is increasingly exciting fruit. Over Memorial Day weekend, I received a couple of emails from clients wondering “can I eat cherries and watermelon?”  The easy answer, if you’re at let’s say a barbeque is if you’re choosing between cherries or watermelon and this

then let’s be sensible, fruit is always the healthier pick. This seems obvious but if cherries and watermelon are mentally categorized as “all sugar” things get confusing.  If we’re comparing “apples to apples” or in this case cherries to apples, how do we judge a fruit and which are best to eat?

Pesticides

When you’re at a market or farm stand, if everything isn’t organic you want to choose wisely.  Many of your berries are on the dirty dozen list. Cherries are higher pesticide and really should be purchased organic. Watermelon on the other hand is a member of the “Clean 15” a low pesticide fruit. If organic isn’t an option, watermelon is one of your best choices. If you're unconvinced about organic, plug a few favorite fruits into this site; they list pesticides and type (carcinogen, endocrine disrupter the appetizing list goes on) it's eye opening to say the least. 
Score 1 for watermelon.

Antioxidants

Another gauge for fruits is ORAC a measure of antioxidants. While cherries don’t have an ORAC score as high as blueberries or blackberries, they have a commendable 3747. Watermelon comes in at 140. These scores are per 100 grams of food so the water content of watermelon works against it here.
Cherries a winer here.

Calories, Fiber, Sugar

All fruit is fairly low in calories. Watermelon and strawberries are some of the lowest with cherries and grapes almost double in calories. Fiber all stars include raspberries and blackberries with 8 grams per cup. Cherries have 3 and watermelon only 1 gram. For me, this is a drawback of these fruits. Fiber helps promote satiety and regularity. I advise clients to keep lower fiber fruits for snacks; at breakfast higher fiber choices are preferable to start your day. Another great measure for foods is Glycemic Load (different from glycemic index as it takes into account commonly consumed portions). Most non-dried fruits are low GL (less than 10). Grapes, bananas and cherries are higher and watermelon, apples and strawberries are less than 5 or very low.
Watermelon lower in calories and Glycemic Load.
Cherries have slightly more fiber.

Bragging Rights

With Father’s day approaching, if you’re stumped on what to get for dad (or your husband, father in law, grandfather etc.), you may want to consider watermelon . Watermelon contains more lycopene than tomatoes making it my #1 prostate health food. Cherries have their own reasons to brag. Cherries and more potently cherry juice is on par with aspirin as a pain reliever. It’s useful for pain from both gout and exercise and has been tested in studies with athletes. Cherries also have notable melatonin content.

So, are watermelon and cherries good to eat? They are, they’re both healthy. If you’re actively trying to lose weight I would choose watermelon over cherries. And just for a reminder with all the delicious summer fruit, in the name of knowledge is power it is possible to overfruit.

Are you a cherry and watermelon eater or are you "sugary fruit"phobic? What are your favorite fruits and approximately how much fruit do you have a day?  Any fruits you limit? For extra credit who said “knowledge is power”?

“Googling is cheating”

 Lauren Slayton

 nutritionist, googler and hypocrite

Our contribution to baseball snack this weekend (watermelon). The next day someone brings doughnuts to game with some silly "Bloomberg says these are ok" disclaimer/joke, not funny.

Just how bad are pesticides?

Last week EWG came out with their annual “dirty dozen” (and here’s a CBS segment on the subject I was interviewed for).  The dirty dozen summarizes the most highly contaminated produce and there’s also a “clean” list.  Jenn, of Peas and Crayons wrote a terrific post on the subject. I’m always curious if consumers really take action based on the results. Sometimes it seems as though there’s  the “already organic” camp who go organic to whatever extent they can afford. Then there’s the “organic schmorganic” camp (my mother is a member of) who dismiss the notion of organic is optimal. In the Venn diagram of produce purchasing the “Schmorganics” have substantial overlap with “organic = exorbitant”.  Perhaps, if we stop and think what pesticides have the potential to do to us, people would be swayed. So, just how bad are pesticides?

“Cide” means to kill. When we, or our family members, ingest pesticides we are in ingesting something designed to kill. Sure, they are designed to kill pests but you would you take a hit from an exterminator’s can? As I said to CBS, every bodily system is affected by pesticides. From cancer to Parkinson’s the research is grim. A few examples:  

Pesticides may harm your children, even if they’re not born yet

Pesticides kill insects by attacking their brains and nervous systems, it’s not surprising they affect the development of children’s brains. One study showed ADHD may be cause by damage to neurotransmitters that are affected by pesticides.

A study in the Journal Environmental Health Perspectives  also suggests pesticides may be associated with the health and development of children. “Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health have found that prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides -- widely used on food crops -- is related to lower intelligence scores at age 7.”

What made this especially concerning was that  the results were similar for the NYC children studied at Mt Sinai Medical Center as they were for the children in California living in an agricultural center in Monterey.

Pesticides can make you depressed and less fertile

Pesticides can affect your mood with studies showing depression associated with chronic pesticide exposure. Pesticides can affect those spermies and fertility. I always talk about pesticide exposure when I see clients who are TTC. 

Pesticides can make you gain weight

We think about how certain medications make us gain weight, ever think about how each of the chemicals on your produce affect you? There's an herbicide called atrazine that causes weight gain in rodents. The mice gained weight and in  particular gained visceral fat that increases risk of heart disease. Atrazine is on of the most common pesticides used on crops, particularly on sweet corn.

Purchasing certified organic ensures that no pesticides are used.  You want to eat your fruits and vegetables without a bad taste in your mouth…and those pesticides? They taste like crap too.

Are you “already organic”, “organic schmorganic or organic = exorbitant?  Do you use the dirty/clean dozen to guide your decisions?