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Comment by blunte | Hacker News Reader

The author lets their bias against veganism show with statements like this:

"Further, a significant amount of willpower is required to resist the frequent sugar cravings, which often leads to food (and self) obsessions (very common in fruitarianism)."

Did I miss the study where it was found that fruitarians are often self-obsessed? I would venture a guess that most _people_ are self-obsessed, regardless of their diet.

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I have a hard time believing that fruititarianism could be healthy in any way. It seems like getting almost all of your energy from fructose and hardly any fat and protein (two of the 3 core macronutrients) could not possibly work. It makes me think of an article I read in the past 6 months about how zoo animals are having metabolic damage because the fruit we grow commercially is so high in sugar it's no longer healthy.

And this is purely anecdotal, but I watched a youtube video about a guy who went raw fruititarian for a few months, and his before and after photos were not inspiring. He lost some weight, but his skin and hair seemed fragile, and he seemed kind of lethargic and spacey in his after video.

Oh I don't doubt that fruitarianism is a less than optimal diet, but I don't know that it's fair to claim that fruitarians are generally self-obsessed (at least compared to practioners of other diets and fitness regimes).

It's not that it's "less than optimal", it kills you. It's what killed Steve Jobs for instance.

I was going to reply and complain that it was pancreatic cancer. But after fact-checking a bit, I see that fruits and fruit juices seem to have been linked to pancreatic cancer[1], and there may be some truth in your claim. TIL.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/86/5/1495/4754408

Exactly. Eating only sugar and some Vitamin C and some fiber you cannot digest is not a good diet. Most of the fruitarians you see on Internet are aging and dropping like flies. The lack of proper macronutrients drive them crazy, since their brain cannot function. Just do a search on Youtube "I'm ex vegan" you will hear the stories of the people who escaped different types of veganism, specially the fruitarian one.

Well by definition, something that kills you is less than optimal (unless death is your goal).

Less than optimal has the connotation of being sufficient, but requiring more resources than strictly necessary.

My original post was about the author's bias, not about fruitarianism. My "less than optimal" comment was a gentle, intentionally non-confrontational effort to return the focus on bias rather than the specific diet. Clearly my effort failed.

That and not using proven treatments for cancer.

is less than optimal, it is not optimal at all.

...and shows bias by using the term "the party line" so frequently.

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