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The item quoted below, typically titled The Correct Way of Eating Fruits, has been circulating on the Internet since August 2001. It was written in 1998 by Devagi Sanmugam, a chef and culinary writer who lives in Singapore: Other versions of this text in circulation in 2010 were titled Dr. Oz on Eating Fruit. There's no good reason to associate the television health pundit's name with the Internet-circulated piece, because Dr. Oz is not the author of the item, nor has he endorsed its claims about ingesting fruit only at specific times. In April 2002, versions of the 'Eat fruit on an empty stomach e-mail were appended with a list of six fruits and their properties, which was excerpted from a much longer e-mail about foods that supposedly cause cancer and miracle cures that could be found in supermarkets. In July 2007, the 2006 admonition against drinking cold water immediately after meals because it causes cancer (it doesn't) was added to the piece, as was in November 2007 the 1999 advisory about surviving heart attacks by using cough CPR (in a nutshell, don't try it). The Dr. Herbert Shelton mentioned in the e-mail was a well-known health educator and author who died in 1985. Dr. Shelton held a doctorate degree in naturopathy rather than medicine and was arrested numerous times for practicing medicine without a license. As to the substance of the advice being proffered, the nutritional value of a piece of fruit is the same whether it's eaten on an empty stomach or after a meal. Beliefs regarding ingesting fruit unaccompanied by any other foodstuff and/or only on an empty stomach, appear to have come from various weight loss gurus, the earliest of which might be Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. In the 1980s, part of the regimen advocated by the Diamonds, authors of Fit for Life, dictated that nothing but fruit and fruit juices be consumed before noon. (They believed the body has three natural cycles regarding its use of food: noon to 8 p.m. for eating and digestion, 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. for absorption and use, and 4 a.m. to noon for elimination of body wastes and food debris. Fruit in the morning — and nothing but fruit at that time — is therefore key to the elimination cycle.) Eat fruit on an empty stomach only, said the Diamonds, otherwise the meal can rot, ferment, and turn to acid because the fruit is being delayed in the stomach and prevented from immediately entering the intestine. The Diamonds also advocated food combining, which is the belief that particular foods need to be eaten with other particular foods (and only those foods), while some certain ingestibles must be consumed unaccompanied by anything else. Dieticians frown on the idea of combining certain foods to lose weight because the theory is not based on scientific research and the claims made of it have yet to be proven, however, food combining continues to find its advocates in the weight loss arena, including Suzanne Somers, TV personality and author of Eat Great, Lose Weight (1997) and Marilu Henner, actress and author of Total Health Makeover (2000). (Somers is also numbered among those who recommend eating fruit on an empty stomach.) There is nothing unhealthful about eating fruit along with other foods or after a meal. While it is true fruit (or any other foodstuff) will be more quickly digested if it's the only thing in the stomach, it does not rot in that organ if it happens to share that space with something else. The e-mail's claims that The fruit mixes with the putrefying other food and produces gas and hence you will bloat! and Graying hair, balding, nervous outburst, and dark circles under the eyes all these will not happen if you take fruits on an empty stomach harken back to the Diamonds, who said much the same thing about what they viewed as improper food combining: that it created acid in the system, causing the body to retain water to neutralize it, adding weight and bloat and that it produces fatigue and lethargy, dark circles under the eyes and the graying of hair. Indeed, there are some who would do better to ensure they consume fruits along with other items rather than as a stand-alone. Diabetics, for instance, can somewhat mollify the effect fruit has on spiking their blood sugar levels by ingesting it as part of a meal. (While fructose, the sweetener in most fruits, is not absorbed as rapidly as sucrose and glucose and thus has much less effect on blood sugar levels and insulin, it's still something diabetics have to look out for.)
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