Snack time for two hungry boys after school! But this would make a great snack for anyone. A few pieces of dried apricot, some banana chips and a handful of pistachios.
But wait….DRIED FRUIT IS FULL OF SUGAR!!!
Let’s have a chat about to that shall we?
Per piece of fruit, dried fruit does not have more sugar than fresh. It has more sugar per VOLUME. Let me explain.
To get dried fruit you need to dehydrate it, which removes the liquid making each piece considerably smaller than when it started. Think about the size of a grape and the size of a raisin.
Counting calories is NOT what I encourage, but this is just an example to explain what I mean:
One cup of grapes has around 106 calories.
One cup of raisins has over 430.
This doesn’t mean raisins have more sugar, it means they’re smaller so you can fit much more in the cup.
What’s more interesting is that actually, raisins – per piece – are lower in calories than grapes.
10 grapes is 34 calories but 10 raisins is only 16.
So, dried fruit is smaller so you eat more therefore you take on more sugar.
When you’re eating dried fruit, think about how much of the whole fruit you’d probably eat, and that should be your portion size.
With banana chips, general store bought ones can have added sugars so check the quality of the products you’re buying.
NUTRITION:
The drying process does degrade the fruit’s content of water-soluble vitamins such as vitamin C, but other nutrients actually become more concentrated. So, dried apricots provide higher levels of most nutrients, gram for gram, than fresh. These include iron, potassium and antioxidants.
