Your Body on Fruit: Why Is Fresh Fruit Healthy?

When Stephen Menyhart was in college studying culinary nutrition, one of his professors, Janet Rouslin, told him something that stuck in his brain for years afterward. 

“She said, ‘Nutrition is the most widely discussed and poorly understood topic on Earth,’” he told The FruitGuys. “And [that statement] has rung true for the last twenty years of my own career. We love talking about food, getting together over food, and eating food—but what do we really understand about it?”

Most people know that eating fresh fruit is good for them. It’s right there in the USDA guidelines: Adults should eat 1 ½-2 ½ cups of fruit every day. But why is fresh fruit healthy? 

To find out, we sat down with two experts: Menyhart, who is now a registered dietitian (RD) and school nutrition specialist (SNS), and Barbara Ruhs, MS, RD, a former sports nutritionist at Harvard University who now works in the fresh produce industry. They dug into the details of what fruit does for our bodies when we’re working, playing, and everything in between.

Why Is Fresh Fruit Healthy? 

According to Ruhs, whole fresh fruit is “nature’s perfect package” for delivering nutrients. 

“There are so many benefits of eating fruit. Depending on the variety, you’re getting lots of different vitamins and minerals and nutrients and bioactive nutrients that you can’t get in any other foods [apart from vegetables],” she told The FruitGuys. 

5 Things That Make Fresh Fruit Healthy

Ruhs and Menyhart touched on five main health-boosting components of fresh fruit.

• Fiber — A kind of carbohydrate found in plants like fruits and vegetables.
• Vitamins — Nutrients that come from plants and animals, like ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and retinol (Vitamin A).
• Minerals — Nutrients that come from the soil, like iron, calcium, and potassium.
• Antioxidants — Nutrients that protect your cells from stress-related damage, including carotenoids, flavonoids, isothiocyanates, phenolic acids, and some vitamins. 
• Water — The essential life-giving stuff that keeps our bodies hydrated. 

Let’s dig into each of these components, starting with fruit’s true superstar: fiber. 

The Health Benefits of Fiber

Fresh fruit contains both soluble fiber (which dissolves in water) and insoluble fiber (which doesn’t). Soluble fiber is typically found in the flesh of fruits like apples and pears, while insoluble fiber is more often in fruit peels and skins. 

Ruhs said that fiber is associated with reducing the risk of “almost any diet-related chronic disease” from heart disease to high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer. It does this in large part by keeping digestion moving smoothly and feeding the healthy microbes in the gut. But how exactly does that work?

When you eat fresh fruit or another fiber-rich food, its fiber helps fill up your digestive tract. As you start to digest it, the fiber functions as a “plunger” to push things through the small intestine in a slow, steady, healthy way. This helps keep your blood sugar under control, so eating high-fiber foods can be particularly helpful for people with diabetes.  

“When you have a lot of fiber in your diet, it slows the breakdown of carbohydrates into glucose which affects the insulin response. So when you slow down digestion with fiber, you don’t have a spike in your blood sugar that a person with diabetes may have a hard time managing,” Ruhs explained.

During digestion, the healthy microbes in your gut also feed on the fiber. It helps them stay strong and multiply, which can have other positive health effects.

“We’re learning more and more about gut health and its impact on neurological diseases [like Alzheimer’s and dimentia]. I’m certain it has a role in cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and heart disease as well as diabetes,” Ruhs said.

The Health Benefits of Vitamins, Minerals, and Antioxidants

Every type of fruit has a unique vitamin, mineral, and antioxidant profile, and each of those things has different health benefits. Here are just a few of them. 

• Vitamin C helps strengthen the immune system and is essential for the production of collagen—a critical protein that holds our skin, muscles, and bones together and helps our wounds heal. 
• Potassium, a common mineral in fruit, balances out the salt in our bodies. It helps lower blood pressure and can reduce our risk of heart attack and stroke. 
• Polyphenols, a type of antioxidant, help protect our bodies from damage caused by external stressors like polluted air and UV radiation. They may also guard against chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and more. 

To get the most healthy vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants in your diet, Menyhart and Ruhs recommend eating a wide variety of fresh fruits in different colors. 

“I think we get stuck on the idea that Vitamin C is only in citrus fruits, but there are so many other fruits and vegetables with Vitamin C,” Menyhart said. “Different varieties offer different phytochemicals and different colorations—the blues, purples, oranges, reds—offer a whole spectrum of beneficial phytonutrients.”  

The Health Benefits of Hydration

The Cleveland Clinic reports that simply feeling thirsty is a sign of mild dehydration that can lead to headaches, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, and dizziness. Fresh fruits are often more than 80% water. So eating them regularly can help close the hydration gap, keeping your brain and body functioning optimally both at home and at work.

What Fresh Fruit Does to Your Body

Eating fresh fruit regularly can have both mental and physical health benefits, including:

• Improved digestion
• A healthier heart
• More stable blood sugar
• A stronger immune system
• Lower cancer risk
• A healthier brain

“Even just one more serving of fruits and vegetables in the day can actually make a dramatic impact on your health,” Ruhs said.

Why Fresh Fruit Is a ‘Green-Light Food’

Not only is fruit packed with health benefits, it’s also free from fat and added sugar, which have been linked to negative health outcomes. Fruit does contain natural sugars, but eaten whole, the fiber it’s packaged with keeps them from spiking blood sugar levels. 

“Fruit is a guilt-free food, a green-light food. You can eat that snack at any time of day and know you won’t suffer adverse consequences,” Menyhart said. 

Why Eating Fresh Fruit at Work Matters

Fruit is a healthy office snack that keeps your digestive system moving, helps you stay hydrated, and protects you from illness. Eating it regularly could ultimately reduce the time you have to stay home sick and help you get more work done.

“Eating a variety of different [fruits] can help you manage cold and flu season and just boost up your defenses because you’re working around other people. Fruit is something I think is a great thing to have in the workplace and just a sneaky way to ensure you’re getting even just one more serving a day,” Ruhs said. 

To learn more about the mental health benefits of eating fresh fruit at work—including how it helps with memory, productivity, and reducing anxiety and depression—check our deep dive “Fruit Is Brain Food.”

About the Experts

Stephen Menyhart, RD, SNS, is a registered dietitian, school nutrition specialist, and chef. He runs the consulting company Molto Cuore and volunteers for Culinary Hospitality Outreach Wellness.

Barbara Ruhs, MS, RD, is a registered dietitian who also holds a Master of Science. She is a former sports nutritionist at Harvard University, and now works in the fresh produce industry and runs the consulting company The Market RD.