Hacker News Reader

Experts generally regard fruit consumption as beneficial due to the fiber, not so much the rest of it, and squeezing the fruit for its juice (or drying it) is viewed as a risk of excessive sugar intake.

In any event, in the case of coffee its consumption bears little resemblance to what would ordinarily be regarded as a fruit.

View on HN

Fruits are full of phytochemicals like polyphenols that have shown interesting health effects. Coffee has quite a high polyphenols content too.

Phytochemicals literally just means "chemicals from a plant", which include the infamous antioxidants as well as toxins, hormone disruptors, GABA agonists and other poisons in general.

Some fruits have some compounds, along thousands of unspecified others, which seem to have a beneficial effect, most often in-vitro.

Regarding polyphenols, there is no hard, concrete evidence that any have actual positive health benefits.

One thing is for sure, the marketing surrounding these "5 a day to be healthy" is extremely strong and widespread.

> Experts generally regard fruit consumption as beneficial due to the fiber,

This is an outdated theory, that is no longer supported by the current state of the research. The health benefits of fruits and vegetables is primarily driven by phytochemical, not fibers.[1]

[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3650511/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com