Spotlight: Fruit

For our second category of carbohydrates, let's focus on fruits. You may have heard that some fruit is really good for you (ie. blueberries), and other fruit is "just straight sugar" (ie. bananas).  I am really sick of hearing that phrase.  Where does that come from? Is it true? Well, no. All fruit is made up of carbohydrates, but the volume or serving size that actually equals 15 grams of carbohydrates (one serving) can differ quite a bit from fruit to fruit. So you will notice that some fruits are essentially more nutritionally dense than others, but that certainly does not make them bad or "high in sugar"!  So let's get informed about portions. Remember, each of these servings has 15 grams of carbohydrates and 60 calories.

 

Fruit Overview

• ½ c canned or fresh or juice (not sweetened)
• 1 small fresh fruit (4 oz)
• 2 T dried fruit 

Examples:

• small apple
• 4 dried apple rings
• ½ c unsweetened apple sauce
• 8 halves dried apricots
• 1 extra small banana
• 3/4 c blackberries or blueberries
• ⅓ whole or 1 c cubed cantaloupe or honeydew
• 12 fresh cherries
• ½ dried figs or 2 medium fresh
• ½ c fruit cocktail
• ½ large grapefruit
• 17 small grapes
• 1 kiwi
• ½ whole or ½ c mango
• small orange
• 1 fresh medium peach
• ½ fresh large pear
• ¾ fresh pineapple
• 1 c raspberries
• 1 ½ c whole strawberries
• 2 small tangerines
• 1 ¼ c cubed watermelon
• ½ c apple or grapefruit or orange juices
• ⅓ c grape or prune juice

Interesting stuff, huh? Alright, next on the list... milk!