Fruit: cause and cure for cancer?
A relative recently forwarded me a chain email that she had received several times, suggesting it might be useful blog fodder. The subject line read: Eating Fruit – In Perspective. The message was rather long so I’m not going to paste the whole thing in here. I’ll just give you a summary of the most salient points.
According to the email there is a Dr Stephen Mak who has been curing cancer patients using an unorthodox method. Apparently the trick is to always eat fruit on an empty stomach. “If you eat fruit like that, it will play a major role to detoxify your system, supplying you with a great deal of energy for weight loss and other life activities.” Not only that, “graying hair, balding, nervous outburst, and dark circles under the eyes – all these will NOT happen if you take fruits on an empty stomach.” The article then states that eating fruit on a full stomach causes it to “rot” and “ferment” in the stomach causing gas and bloating.
The top hits of a google search for “Dr Stephen Mak” are sites deeming the fruit email quackery. It also appears that there is no such person as this Dr Mak. There is no reason to believe that cancer can be cured simply by the timing of fruit consumption. It frustrates me to see misinformation such as this being shared with desperate people. Eating fruit after a meal is not going to give you cancer.
Eating fruit on an empty stomach is not going to cure cancer. If curing cancer were so simple no one would be dying from it anymore. Eating fruit on an empty stomach will not cure anything, except maybe, hunger (although, personally, I always find an apple on an empty stomach always makes me feel hungrier).
Finally, it’s a common myth that eating fruit on a full stomach will cause it to rot and ferment. Think about it though… Your stomach is always churning your food around during digestion. It doesn’t matter what order you consume it in. The fruit is not going to sit on top; it’s going to get all mixed together with everything else you’ve eaten at that meal and all of your gastric juices. There is no possibility that it will rot in your stomach.
The only positive aspect of this message is that we should eat fruit.