What is the Healthiest Fruit?

Editor’s Note:  This post is a part of our Pretty Darn Thoughtful™️ series. Although the information in it is based on science, it is not as heavily supported by clinical trials and medical society guidelines like much of the other information on this website.

Fruits are humankind’s first desserts. Sweet, tangy, and flavorful – they provide not only satisfaction, but healthy nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, fiber, and potassium. With regards to our health, one thing is certain – most people don’t consume enough of them.

In the era of low-carb diets, fruits require some defense. Fruit consumption has been associated with a lower risk of diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and death. Despite these benefits, concerns remain about the sugar content of fruit. Fruit does contain sugar, but it also contains fiber, which makes it more difficult to chew and slower to digest. This limits the amount of fruit (and therefore sugar) that people generally consume, and slows the rate at which the sugar is absorbed. As a result, there is less impact on blood sugar and insulin levels.

If you ever took a class in economics, you may remember bananas being used to teach the principle of diminishing marginal utility and the law of demand. After you eat a banana, you are not as hungry, and are not willing to pay as much for a second banana. The same example does not work as well with Oreo’s or potato chips, because they are low in fiber and not as filling.

I think we can agree that most, if not all, fruits are generally healthy. But, are some fruits healthier than others? They provide different amounts nutrients, as well as varying amounts of sugar. Certainly some may provide more benefits than others, right? I would never recommend eating just one or two fruits, or ignoring others. But there are many people who don’t eat a lot of fruit for various reasons, and they may benefit from choosing “healthier” fruit. And for those of us who eat more fruit, the way we choose what to eat is likely somewhat arbitrary (whatever catches our eye at the supermarket, or whatever is on sale), so wouldn’t it be nice to have some health information to guide our decisions?

How can you rank fruit?

In trying to answer this question, the biggest challenge was accounting for the various vitamins and minerals different fruits provide. Some are high in Vitamin C, others are high in folic acid, etc. Many contain different compounds that we don’t even fully understand.

I decided to ignore all of these. Why? For one thing, we don’t have a lot of good data on the benefits of these compounds, and it is difficult to compare one against the other. Additionally, it is pretty uncommon to see micronutrient deficiencies in people who make even the slightest effort at eating a healthy or varied diet.

What many people are deficient in, however, is fiber and potassium. On average, Americans take in less than half of the recommended amount of fiber per day, and slightly more than half of the recommended amount of potassium. Increasing fruit intake, especially certain fruits, could help correct these problems. Read about my Principles of Healthy Nutrition to better understand the importance of fiber and potassium.

The list of fruits I used was compiled by suggestions. I stuck with culinary fruits (sorry avocado and tomato), so that I wasn’t comparing apples to oranges (haha). Then, I performed calculations for the ones where I could find reliable data.

Fiber

To assess fiber, I used the ratio from the TRACk™️ method – grams of fiber divided by grams of carbohydrates – to assess healthiness. If you will recall, in the article on Principles of Healthy Nutrition, I posited that eating foods with a TRACk™️ ratio of greater than 1 to 10, or 0.1, would result in an adequate fiber intake for most people. In general, the higher the TRACk™️ ratio of a food, the better, and fruits mostly have a favorable score in this regard. The calculated results for fruit are below:

Fruits and fiber content

As you can see, berries, pears, oranges, and some tropical fruits are rich in fiber. Interestingly, the distribution of fiber is not smooth, with the top three fruits (blackberries, raspberries, and guava) containing much more fiber than the others. On the other hand, many fruits that people consider “sweet” are lower in fiber, such as melons, grapes, dates, and mangoes.

Potassium

To assess potassium content, I needed to choose a unit for the quantity of fruit that was consumed. I didn’t want to use a standard serving size, because that amount is somewhat arbitrary. I also didn’t want to use a weight, such as 100 grams of fruit, because that might penalize fruits that are more watery. I decided to use 100 calories as the denominator, because caloric content is a good measure of “how much” of something you are eating. I also subtracted twice the amount of sodium per 100 calories since it is recommended that you take in twice as much potassium as sodium (in a sense, 1 milligram of sodium cancels out the benefit of 2 milligrams of potassium). Fortunately, most fruits have a negligible amount of sodium. The calculated results are here:

Fruits and potassium content

Physicians often recommend bananas and oranges to patients who are trying to increase their potassium intake. Who knew cantaloupe had so much potassium? Honeydew melons, apricots, kiwis, and peaches are also commonly available fruits that are high in potassium.

And finally, I combined the fiber and potassium scores. To do this, I normalized each score to a maximum value of 50 and added them together, thus deriving the Doctor T Fruit heaLth pOWER Rankings (FLOWER™️ Rankings)! And the winner is…

Doctor T FLOWER™️ Rankings

…BLACKBERRIES… just edging out guava for the win. As you can see, the high fiber fruits (blackberries, guava, raspberries) top the list, followed by some high potassium fruits (papaya and cantaloupe). Strawberries, apricots, and peaches fare pretty well in both categories.

So, what does this mean? Should you stop eating blueberries? Of course not. They are not particularly high in fiber or potassium, but they have many antioxidants and other compounds that are postulated to protect against heart disease and cancer. And they are a lot healthier than most processed foods.

This analysis is meant to highlight the quantifiable benefits of fruit. It should spark discussion and hopefully remind us to eat more fruit of ALL kinds. If your diet needs more fiber or potassium, certain fruits may be better choices for you, and the above information may be beneficial in that regard. So, if you’ve never had a guava, give it a try. And if you usually skip the raspberries as you pass through the produce aisle, stop and pick up a box. And always go with the bananas over the Oreo’s.

Let me know what you think in the comment section below!

Final calculation: Fiber(g/serving)/Carbohydrates(g/serving) x 50/0.57814 + [Potassium(mg/serving)- 2*Sodium(mg/serving)] / (calories/serving) x 100 x 50/6.9785