These Healthy Fruits Are the Root of Your Bloating
While beans, cheeses and veggies are infamous belly-bloaters, certain great-for-you fruits can also make you feel like you've been sucking on a helium hookah. That's particularly true if you have a sensitive stomach that isn't great friends with a few natural substances found in fruits. Here are a few of the most common offenders, along with tips on how you can still enjoy them — along with the fat-blasting, nutrient-rich benefits they can provide.
Prunes & Other Dried Fruits
Prunes were your great-grandma's folk laxative for a reason. Ahem. And while they can keep things moving, dried fruits can also cause your belly to balloon because of their dense fiber and fructose content. Prunes are also the highest fruit source of sorbitol, a sugar alcohol added to chewing gum that's infamous for causing bloating—it takes a long time to digest and encourages bacteria to ferment in your intestine.
Beat the Bloat
If you love dried fruit, read the label before you buy. Many dried fruits have more added sugar than a donut! And be conscious of portion size: four to five prunes count as one serving.
Pears
The sweet and crunchy fruits can have you feeling pear-shaped after snacking on them—they're also one of the fruits that are highest in fructose and sorbitol. In addition, their fiber content can be troublesome if you have a sensitive belly and eat too much or too quickly: A medium pear has almost three times the fiber as an ounce of raisins.
Beat the Bloat
If you love pears, add them to a fruit salad with watermelon and honeydew melon; melon's water content and ability to act as a natural diuretic will soothe a swollen stomach.
Cherries
High in protective antioxidants and fat-burning anthocyanins, cherries are nature's candy and diet pill rolled into one — unless you have trouble digesting fructose. If you happen to be in this unfortunate group, a serving of this fruit can have you feeling like Ms. Pac-Man. They also pack a considerable amount of that pesky stomach-swelling sugar alcohol.
Beat the Bloat
Snack on raspberries, strawberries or blueberries at the same time. The berries' high water content will counteract cherries' belly-ballooning properties. Or chase a snack with bloat-banishing detox water. Fruits like lemons and blueberries reduce bloating, and the extra liquid will aid fiber digestion.
Peaches & Apricots
Also high in fiber and sugars, the orangey fruits can cause tummy trouble, particularly because they're often consumed as part of desserts and in canned or dried varieties.
Beat the Bloat
Always opt for a fresh peach over canned to avoid any additional bloating additives, and have a fresh apricot instead of snacking on dried, which can lead to mindlessly consuming several servings' worth of sugars.
Apples
Because they're high in fiber and antioxidants, apples are one of the best fruits for weight loss. But they can be one of the worst fruits for your belly if you have trouble digesting fructose, a natural fruit sugar that can leave you feeling gassy.
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