On the matter of the natural sweetness of fruit

When thinking about natural sweetness the spectrum is indeed large, from that intense sweetness of really dried dates and ripe tropical soft fruit like mangoes to the subtle in green bananas and just yellowing plantains. For most who think themselves healthy fruit is undoubtedly one of those foods at the forefront. Yet the sugar content of so many ripe fruit is high, too high some therapist think for the good in patients who have cancer. ‘Cancer likes sugar’ is the cry and it might well be the case. A malignant  lesion developing apace, outside the normal factors controlling body growth, is a little like a pregnancy, which we know and see grows exponentially towards term. Similarly a cancer will, when spread and uncontrolled emaciate and engulf its owner. It is therefore easy to see how such a malignancy will have an appetite for energy i.e. sugar.

A safer way perhaps to enjoy fruit is to get used to it at a slightly less than ripe state, or use fruit that is naturally tart like the English Bramley cooking apple, green bananas, barely ripe pears, and berries - some many of these are sharp and low in sugar even when ripe.

Abstaining from fruit might be hard but if one can’t cope with this at least avoid sweetened fruit. This means no tinned fruit, for at its best this is canned in fruit juice and worst in syrup. Fruit in yoghurts and dairy products is usually accompanied with sugar especially if of the berry type. Fruit on and in  cakes, and especially fruit jams, even those which have no added sugar for they are in fruit juice, this of course a sweet type to make the product widely acceptable.

I have a problem with dried fruit. Sultanas in the UK can be bought for a fraction of the cost of raisins especially as a ‘in house’ product or as they sometime call them ‘Basics’. I rinse and soak these and use the swollen fruit and the water they were soaked in as the only sweetening when I make cakes - definitely not adding sugar above what is in this.

It gives a barely sweet taste to the end product and the swollen sultanas, still with a touch of sweetness but lots of moisture make the cake quite nice.

The compromise I mentioned brings home the difficulty of giving up sweetness altogether.

The realistic ambition is therefore to cut sugar out as much as one can and develop a contentment with what is barely sweet. This contentment can be improved by things like texture - a crisp or crumbly casing, - moisture, where for instance lemon juice is trickled over a cake, the addition of particulates like sultanas, nuts, or the addition of cream especially whipped cream and some chopped fruit.

Giving up sweetness is tough.