“I am really dying for some advice. Getting good quality fruit is really hard sometimes, especially getting variety. I love frozen durians imported from Thailand, and I have even been eating it as a staple, because I can get them pretty cheap (only 79 cents per lb). I like to eat a lot of durian because it’s sweet and not acidic. I've been trying to avoid too much acidic fruits because my tooth enamel is damaged. Especially in the winter, most of the local fruits are acidic, such as kiwis, citrus, etc. The only problem is that I heard durians are irradiated! Have you heard this? Do you think eating frozen, irradiated durians as a staple (like, every day) would compromise my health?”

ANSWER: In my opinion, frozen durians cannot be a staple of any diet. I know for a fact that they are heavily sprayed with toxic chemicals. Perhaps those chemicals don't make their ways into the fruit flesh because of the tough skin, but I'm not sure of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d be irradiated. The other problem is that the fruit is frozen. I do not consider frozen fruits to be fresh foods. Sure, I do eat them occasionally, but they are not optimal, especially if they are eaten cold. Eating cold (frozen) fruit is the equivalent of putting an ice pack in the stomach. All digestion stops, and indigestion follows. But even if you eat your frozen durian fully thawed, it is still no longer a fresh food and in my opinion only fresh foods can be the staple of the diet.

Bananas can form a good staple during the winter. Organic bananas are inexpensive (if bought by the case), and are not irradiated.

In the winter, I eat bananas, apples, pears, but also other fruits as they are available. Persimmons become a staple until January. I also eat some citrus, but I wait until the end of the season (March) when oranges are really ripe and sweet. I eat yellow kiwis, which are not too acidic. Starting from April we get good mangoes.

If you want to rebuild your enamel, make sure you consume at least one pound of green vegetables per day, avoid all dried foods (including nuts and dried fruit), and follow the advice found in my web page: http://www.puredentalhealth.com.

Yours,

Frederic

DURIAN CHALLENGE

“I was wondering what your opinion is of the durian. I'm in love with it but I think it is quite digestively challenging.”

ANSWER: I love durian too, and yes, it can be a little challenging to digest. The trick is to never mix it with anything else, and have plenty of water before or after you eat it. I also think that the kinds of durians we get in the Asian stores are not ideal. I heard from people who traveled to South-East Asia and tried different kinds of durian there that it's much better and easier to digest than our imported durian.