 Previously, I explored how adding berries to our meals can actually blunt the detrimental effects of high glycemic foods. But how many berries? The purpose of this study was to determine the minimum level of blueberry consumption, which a consumer may realistically expect to receive antioxidant benefits after eating blueberries with a sugary breakfast cereal. If we eat a bowl of cornflakes with no berries, within two hours so many free radicals are created it puts us into oxidative debt. The antioxidant power of our bloodstream drops below where we started from before breakfast as the antioxidants in our bodies get used up. And a quarter cup of blueberries didn't seem to help much, but a half a cup of blueberries did. What about fruit for diabetics? Most guidelines recommend eating a diet high in intake of fiber-rich foods, including fruit because they're so healthy. Antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, improve artery function, reduce cancer risk. However, some health professionals have concerns about the sugar content of fruit, and therefore recommend restricting fruit intake. Okay, let's put it to the test. Diabetics were randomized into two groups. One told to eat at least two pieces of fruit a day, and the other told to at most eat two fruits a day. The reduce fruit group reduced their fruit, and it had no effect on the control of their diabetes or weight, and so the intake of fruit should not be restricted in patients with type 2 diabetes. An emerging literature has shown that low-dose fructose may actually benefit blood sugar control, so having a piece of fruit with each meal would be expected to lower, not raise the blood sugar response. The threshold for toxicity of fructose may be around 50 grams. The problem is that's the current average adult fructose consumption thanks to industrial sugar intake, table sugar, and high fructose corn syrup. So the levels of half of all adults are likely above the threshold for fructose toxicity, and adolescents currently average 75. Now is that the limit for added sugars or for all fructose? If we don't want more than 50 and there's like 10 in a piece of fruit, should we not eat more than 10 fruit a day? Quoting from the Harvard Health Letter, the nutritional problems of fructose and sugar come when they are added to foods. Fruit, on the other hand, is beneficial in almost any amount. What do they mean, almost? Can we eat 10 fruit a day? How about 20 fruit a day? It's actually been put to the test. 17 people were made to eat 20 servings a day of fruit. Despite the extraordinarily high fructose content of this diet, and about 200 grams a day, 8 cans of soda worth, the investigators reported no adverse effects and possible benefit, actually, for body weight, blood pressure, and insulin and lipid levels after 3 to 6 months. More recently, Jenkins and colleagues put people on about 20 servings of fruit a day diet for a few weeks, and no adverse effects on weight or blood pressure or triglycerides, and an astounding 38-point drop in LDL cholesterol. There was one side effect, though. Given the 44 servings of vegetables they had on top of all that fruit, they recorded the largest bowel movements, apparently ever documented in a dietary intervention.