This Is What Happens When You Eat 1 Grapefruit Everyday

What do you think of when you think of grapefruits? Sourness, bitterness, squeezing your eyes shut and pursing your lips? You’re not alone, a quick straw poll as we put this article together revealed that most of us do think that (and pull the same faces as we relive a childhood spent being forced to eat grapefruit).

But actually, also as part of collating all the information on this article, we bought a few different grapefruits and put them to the taste test. Aside from just the normal yellow fleshed grapefruits that used to be around, we found pink and even red versions that really are quite sweet!

So step aside apples and oranges, there’s a new fruit in town (or the fruit bowl) and it’s positively teeming with health benefits. Here’s the top 10 health benefits of eating grapefruit every day (without a sourness in sight) …

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Grapefruits help your skin look great

Grapefruits truly could be your answer to glowing, healthy and youthful skin (when eaten as part of a healthy diet, they’re not magical fruits that can counteract the effects of smoking, dehydration and stress on the skin).

This is because grapefruits are rich in vitamin C. The body requires vitamin C for healthy wound healing but also in the manufacture of collagen. Anyone who’s seen an advert for anti ageing skin care products that promise the earth will know that collagen has something to do with younger looking skin, but how?

Collagen is a protein that forms a kind of biological scaffold underneath the skin. Along with another protein, elastin, this scaffold supports the skin and keeps it looking plump and full of youth. As we age, we naturally lose collagen which means that the protein scaffold can lose strength in places, allowing the skin to sag and droop, casing fine lines and wrinkles. Eating vitamin C rich grapefruits can help the body replenish its supplies of collagen to a certain extent, and help us avoid those tell tale signs of ageing!

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They help to keep the immune system strong and healthy

Part of the citrus family, grapefruits are packed with the antioxidant vitamin, vitamin C. Antioxidants help to neutralise free radicals – nasty unstable molecules of oxygen that move around the body scavenging for spare electrons to help stabilise themselves. In doing so, they can cause damage to our cells and our DNA and if allowed to build up, can lead to chronic inflammation and diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and dementia.

Free radicals can enter the body through breathing in pollution and environmental toxins, smoking and eating a poor diet high in fatty, salty, sugary and processed foods. But even if we lead a virtuous life, they’re still about as they’re also the unfortunate consequence of normal biological functions such as breathing and digestion.

Antioxidants are our saviour, as they selflessly donate their spare electrons to unstable free radicals, helping to reduce the level of inflammation in the body and lowering our risk of disease. But what does all this have to do with the immune system? Free radical damage and chronic inflammation can impair the immune system, leaving us more vulnerable to illness and infection. So eating antioxidant rich grapefruits helps to protect the immune system and lower our risk of disease.

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You may end up eating fewer calories…

Grapefruits are rich in belly loving fibre, that when consumed, helps us to stay fuller by absorbing water and swelling in our stomachs, making us think we’re full. It’s thought that many of us don’t consume enough fibre each day, so eating grapefruits is a good way of adding you our daily fibre intake (they contain around 2g per half a grapefruit and our recommended daily intake is around 30g).

Fibre, or ‘roughage’ as it was known as back in the day, helps to keep the bowels moving along nicely and helps to prevent constipation. But not only that, a fibre rich diet helps to ensure the stomach empties at a slower rate into the intestines, helping to increase the time it takes us to digest our meals.

This make us feel fuller for longer, meaning that we’ll be less likely to snack between meals and accidentally consume more calories than we intended to.

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Meaning that you may also lose weight more quickly!

Those of us old enough will remember the craze of the grapefruit diet – a calorie restricted diet which encouraged us to eat grapefruit with each meal (three times a day) for 12 weeks. Those who managed to stick to it did lose significant amounts of weight, but critics argued that it was all down to restricting calories to around 1,000 a day – half the recommended daily amount.

But there may actually be some truth in it. As well as being rich in fibre, grapefruits are also full of water, which also helps to keep our stomachs full. They’re very low in calories too, so eating grapefruits before each meal, can make us feel fuller more quickly, meaning that we consume less, and therefore lose weight.

In fact, studies show this theory to be true with those eating grapefruits before each meal losing more weight than those who didn’t.

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Eating grapefruits is a great way to detox the body

Since grapefruits are so rich in belly filling fibre and water, plus being low in calories whilst being rich in vitamins and minerals, they help to increase the rate at which waste food moves through the intestines after it’s left the stomach.

This movement of waste and toxins through the bowel means that the body is effectively detoxing itself by eliminating waste in the form of our stools.

Being more regular in the bowel department isn’t just great for detoxing, it also means that we feel less sluggish. We all know how uncomfortable it is to be constipated, so eating grapefruits on a regular, daily basis, will help in that department, too!

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Grapefruits can help to minimise the risk of developing insulin resistance and diabetes, grapefruit benefits

Insulin resistance is a precursor to prediabetes and type 2 diabetes and is caused by a poor response to the hormone insulin that’s released when we eat a sugary meal.

Eating grapefruit on a regular basis has shown to have the ability to help control insulin levels and therefore reduce your chances of becoming insulin resistant which in turn will keep your blood sugar levels under control and reduce your likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes.

As yet, scientists and doctors aren’t entirely sure how grapefruit has this effect, but it’s thought to be connected to its ability to promote weight loss when consumed before a meal, as we discovered above. Losing weight helps to control insulin sensitivity and reduce insulin resistance, with the knock on effect of lower blood sugars and less risk of type 2 diabetes. So in our book that means fill up on grapefruit before a meal and reap the multiple metabolic and weight loss benefits!

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Grapefruits have heart healthy benefits

Looking after the health of our hearts is extremely important, especially as we get older and we put more strain on our hearts with our sometimes poor lifestyle choices.

Grapefruits are a great choice of fruit for looking after the heart as they’ve shown the ability to help lower blood pressure and levels of bad LDL cholesterol.

This is thought to be because grapefruits are rich in the mineral potassium, that helps to look after the heart and lower the risk of dying from coronary heart disease. Also, the high fibre content of grapefruits also helps to look after the health of the heart, not just the bowel. Studies consistently show that a diet rich in fibre helps to keep blood pressure and cholesterol measurements at a healthy level which protects against heart disease and strokes.

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Eating grapefruits regularly may reduce your risk of kidney stones

The kidneys filter waste products and send them off into the bladder along with the urine in order for the body to eliminate them. Kidney stones develop as a result of waste materials from our diet and biological processes, building up in the kidneys and forming crystal like substances. Over time, these crystals fuse together to make small stones.

And as anyone who’s had to pass a kidney stone in their urine will tell you, they’re extremely painful. If they become too big to painfully pass, they can cause a blockage in the urinary system which is a serious health problem that often requires surgical intervention.

Most commonly, the main substance in kidney stones is a substance called oxalate which also binds to excess calcium. Grapefruits contain an organic acid called citric acid which has the capability of also binding with calcium, flushing it from the body, preventing the oxalate from forming large kidney stones. The citric acid in grapefruits also increases the pH of the urine, making it more alkaline and therefore creating an undesirable environment for kidney stones to form. Go grapefruits!

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They’ll help you stay hydrated all day!

Grapefruits are around 92% water (more than any other fruit), which makes them incredibly hydrating. If you’re a bit lax at drinking enough fluids (including water, weak fruit squashes and herbal teas) then starting your day with grapefruit for breakfast, either on its own or as part of a balanced healthy breakfast can help you on your way to hydration.

A good test is to check the colour of your urine. Normal urine should be straw coloured (not in the morning, this isn’t a good test as urine is always darker in the morning after sleeping all night, or even getting up one or twice in the night to have a pee).

So throughout the day, if your urine is looking fairly dark and has a strong odour then you’re probably dehydrated. Eat some grapefruit or drink some grapefruit juice to help you top up your fluid reserves.
Here’s a cool trick – when choosing grapefruits, choose the heavier one of two that are the same size – it’ll contain more juice and less of the inedible skin and pith.

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Eat grapefruits and you may feel more energised

Who couldn’t do with something that boosts our energy levels, especially late in the afternoon when we’ve done a day’s work in the office or at home looking after the kids? Not many of us, that’s for sure.

The problem is, most things that boost our energy levels also has the unwanted knock on effect of either being laden with calories or preventing us from sleeping. Think chocolate, caffeine and alcohol…

But the belly filling and hydrating properties of grapefruits, as well as their fresh, zingy, citrussy flavour may well perk us up, whilst not having any of the calorific or artificially stimulating effects of most of our other crutches that keep us going. So, let’s hear it for the energising power of grapefruits, hurrah!

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Eating grapefruits – what a wonderful way to stay healthy

We all know that we should aim to eat at least five portions of fresh fruits and vegetables each day. Sometimes it can be hard to reach that target, especially if we’re on the go all day and grabbing something that will energise and keep us full is the name of the game.

So we find that making fruit smoothies for breakfast is a great way to make sure we’re starting the day off right. Literally any fruit can be added to a smoothie, and all you need is a relatively cost effective smoothie maker or blender (that once purchased, will last you years). Some vegetables are good for adding to smoothies too, including spinach, lettuce, cucumber, celery and even cooked beetroot and carrot (ideal for using up leftovers, as long as they’re not smothered in oil or salt).

Of course, you can also eat grapefruit the old fashioned way – cut in half, using a spoon to scoop out the flesh and eating it straight from the spoon. Or, you could eat tinned grapefruit (just watch out for added sugars, tinned in its own fresh juices is best) or you could try drinking grapefruit juice. (Again, watch for added sugars, but fresh grapefruit juice can be used in smoothies or juices in just the same way and can replace some of the other liquids you might add, such as water, milk – dairy or non dairy, your choice – or coconut water.)

So how much grapefruit each day constitutes one of our five portions of fruits and vegetables a day? Aim for half a fresh grapefruit, 80g of tinned grapefruit or 150ml of grapefruit juice. You can also add grapefruits to salads for an interesting twist – the internet is awash with recipes. One word of caution – grapefruits have been known to interact with certain drugs, including those meant to treat high blood pressure and high cholesterol. A full list of possible medicine interactions with grapefruits is available here.

So, we’re off to the greengrocers… Who’s with us?!