Yes, I have times when I eat strictly a fruitarian diet. It can be very beneficial. Most the time when I am traveling, I just switch to fruitarian until I return home. Fruitarian is very simple, you just pick up fruit and eat it. There is no preperation, etc..
A fruitarian diet is like a vegetarian diet, but exludes all products that kill plants. This includes wood, root vegetables, leafy greens, and anything where a plant is injured or killed. Animal products are also banned. Although a diet of only sweet fruit is high in sugar, fruitarians only eat a moderate amount of sweet fruits. They eat beans, nuts and seeds as well as savory vegetable-like fruits such as tomato, cucumber, squash, zuchinni, etc. Most fruitarians are raw foodists (they don't eat food at a temperature over 115*F/46*C) but some fruitarians will eat cooked food. I at one point seriously considred being a fruitarian since I feel guilty killing plants, but I figured that i cannot get a good enough variety of fruit and legumes to satisfy my nutritional needs. There is also my parents who contradict such a diet who think veganism is already bad enough. Maybe someday when I'm on my own I will pursue fruitarianism.
Going from veganism to fruitarianism is not much harder than going ovo-lacto veggie to vegan. That is only the diet part of it. As for a fruitarian lifestye, that is harder. You cannot use wood products, among many othet plant-derived materials. That is why I want to live in a brick house when I grow up.
I think you can be a healthy fruitarian if you consider all seeds part of your diet. So you would be eating grains, nuts, and beans as well as all botanical fruits. I'm not too sure about giving up the leafy greens, though-- they're a very valuable source of nutrition.
I do NOT think you could be healthy living on what most people consider "fruit," as in, just the sugary ones.
Well technically all grains, nuts and beans are seeds, which is what I meant when I said, "consider all seeds part of your diet." So wheat, rice, walnuts, almonds, pinto beans, soybeans, and so on would all be seeds. Ditto pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds.
Going from veganism to fruitarianism is not much harder than going ovo-lacto veggie to vegan. That is only the diet part of it. As for a fruitarian lifestye, that is harder. You cannot use wood products, among many othet plant-derived materials. That is why I want to live in a brick house when I grow up.
I live in a brick house. You are aware that all brick houses contain wood. I am not aware of any house that doesn't use wood. Even stell frame houses have plywood roofs. Also, brick is obtained from clay which involves digging up lots of plants to get at.
I think you can err on the side of absurd. Fruits and vegetable/fruits are in fact fertilized and contain what can become new plants, so you are, technically, killing a plant.
One thing you might do is consider buying an existing house. You cannot save the plants killed to build the hous, true, but you are not using more damage by using more materials to build a new house. America has a good supply of houseing, but we do not have a good supply of 200,000 Sq ft. homes. Hence the "McMansion" phenomenom.
I feel fruitarain borders on the same level of thinking as meat eating. Meat eaters say we are supposed to eat meat because we can. Likewise, fruitarians feel we are not meant to kill plants. Neither of these meets the primate catagory. Primates , except i rare instances, eat plant products, and primates do damage and/or kill plants to eat.
Consider this, if you are eating foods from a cultivated piece of land, plants were definately killed to provide you with food.
Even if it's impossible to truly live an impact free life, you can try to lessen your impact and I don't think trying is absurd. But I'll grant you that it's important to be educated about the actual impact you're making every day. What one thinks are lower-impact choices might turn out to higher impact than anticipated.
If you really want lower-impact housing, try cob housing. Someone just recently posted several excellent links on it, but I can't remember which thread.
I am a little confused by the "extending compassion to the plant kingdom" thing. Do fruitarians believe that plants have the ability to suffer or have interests despite the fact they do not have nervous systems or brains?
I am a little confused by the "extending compassion to the plant kingdom" thing. Do fruitarians believe that plants have the ability to suffer or have interests despite the fact they do not have nervous systems or brains?
The few I've talked to seem to view it more as an ideal of living as harmoniously as possible with all life and the planet at large.
PS: However, I do think that perhaps it's possible for plants to have interests. I feel intuitively that my houseplants are better off healthy than sick/dying. Do they have an interest in being healthy, and not being damaged? Certainly, they seem to take steps to minimize damage to themselves, mainly by secreting chemicals that repel or poison insects that try to eat them.
Total fruitarianism is nearly impossible as plants are often killed indirectly in some way as Chris in WC pointed out, but many fruitarians try to go as far as they can to stop the death of plants.
PS: However, I do think that perhaps it's possible for plants to have interests. I feel intuitively that my houseplants are better off healthy than sick/dying. Do they have an interest in being healthy, and not being damaged? Certainly, they seem to take steps to minimize damage to themselves, mainly by secreting chemicals that repel or poison insects that try to eat them.
I do not believe that something without the ability to think or feel has interests. The survival mechanisms that help plants survive developed as a result of evolution, not out of any personal interest the plants have in staying alive.
Of course every living thing, including plants, is interested in staying alive. But I do not think that a strictly fruitarian diet is healthy. It's very easy to become mineral deficient and unbalanced on a diet devoid of green leafy veggies, sea veggies, and other foods.
Actually no, every living thing is not interested in staying alive. The definition of "interest" in this context is the regard for one's own benefit or advantage. Plants do not have brains and are therefore unable to think, which is a prerequisite for "regarding" anything.
Actually no, every living thing is not interested in staying alive. The definition of "interest" in this context is the regard for one's own benefit or advantage. Plants do not have brains and are therefore unable to think, which is a prerequisite for "regarding" anything.
Then I guess infants and the mentally incompetent can't have interests. Funny how we go to such lengths to protect interests that don't exist.
*Stealing a page from Sevenseas' Big Book of Stock Answers
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