How to make the best fruit salad (and why it’s healthier than a smoothie!)

My family eats more fruit salad than all other desserts put together. We just love fruit! Here are our top tips for making a delicious and healthy fresh fruit salad.

Tu B’Shevat is approaching, and I’ve been thinking about fruit! My family eats a lot of fruit salad. It appears for dessert on our dinner table very frequently. On special occasions we might top it with ice-cream, or serve it with a cookie. But most times there’s just a delicious and healthy bowl of freshly cut fruits. Yum!

Fruit salad vs Smoothie bowl

Some years ago, I had fixed braces on my teeth, and couldn’t eat fruit salad without difficulty. DH would blend my fruit into a smoothie bowl instead, but it just wasn’t the same. It wasn’t as satisfying as a bowl of fruit salad.

It was too quick and easy to eat/drink, and it just didn’t fill me up the same way.

I recently learned that no, I wasn’t imagining this! It turns out that there is a BIG difference between eating the exact same fruit as fruit salad, or blended into juice or a smoothie.

The physical structure of a food is sometimes referred to as the food matrix. In fruits and vegetables, this includes plant cells and their fibrous walls, which give the fruit its structure and stability.

When you blitz up fruit to make a smoothie, these cells are destroyed, and the water, sugars and other cell contents are released. This can change the nutritional properties of the fruit because it affects how our body interacts with and digests the food.

The effects of blending

Destroying the food matrix of a fruit by blending it has several effects, including:

1. It makes the fruit easier to consume quickly – this can confuse your body’s fullness signals which lag slightly behind eating, so makes it easier to overeat.
   Blended fruit also stays in the stomach for less time than whole fruits. Studies have shown that a juice or smoothie won’t keep you feeling full for as long as the same amount of whole fruit.
2. All the sugar is released from the broken plant cells and is available as ‘free sugars’ – often considered equivalent to ‘added sugar’.
   This free sugar enters your bloodstream quickly, causing spikes (and subsequent dips) in blood sugar. Over time this can have many negative health effects including increased risk of type 2 diabetes.
   A 1977 study compared the effects of eating whole apples, apple puree and apple juice. Although the same amount of apple was consumed each time, blood sugar levels rose highest (and quickest) after the juice, less after the puree, and least of all after eating a whole apple.
3. Blending fruit causes the insoluble fibre in plant cell walls to be pulverised, which affects the way it behaves in the gut. This has knock-on effects for the absorption of other vital nutrients, and for the overall health of the gut microbiome.
   While the role of the gut microbiome is still not fully understood, it is known to have effects on the immune system, heart health, weight loss/gain, nervous function and even mental health – so it’s worth keeping it healthy!

Small portion of smoothie = lots of sugar

While a smoothie is better than having no fruit at all, these drinks are generally recognised as not being as healthy as they might at first appear.

Public Health England’s EatWell guidelines say that a serving of smoothie is 150ml – just over half a cup. This small amount is likely because smoothies do contain a lot of free sugars. A typical small, single-serve bottle of smoothie contains around 300ml, which is considered TWO servings.

A 150ml kids-size orange, mango and pineapple smoothie carton contains 17g of sugar. A 150ml ‘mini’ can (airline size) of a very popular non-diet cola available in the UK contains 16g sugar – one gram less!

In each case, that’s around four teaspoons of free sugars per serving.

Whole fruit, smoothies, and juices

Above I’ve outlined why it’s better to eat whole fruits than to blend them into a smoothie. But what about juicing? Is juice healthier than smoothies or whole fruits?

In many ways juices are even worse than smoothies! In most juices, some if not all of the dietary fibre is strained out. This amplifies the speed at which free sugars can be absorbed into the bloodstream. It’s why my diabetic husband will ask for a small glass of orange or apple juice to cure low blood sugar episodes!

The sugar is rapidly absorbed leading to spikes and dips in blood sugar levels – also known as a sugar rush, followed by a ‘crash’.

Everything in moderation

The reasons outlined above are why my family tries to avoid fruit juice and smoothies as an everyday food. However we do believe that everything is fine in moderation! So, along with other less healthy options we save fruit juice as a treat, and try to consume it alongside more complex food rather than on its own.

Drinking a glass of juice with a meal or other food will help to slow the absorption of sugar into your bloodstream. Even having a fibre-, protein- or fat-rich snack with your fruit juice can help to mitigate the sugar rush. Chomp on a few nuts or some wholegrain crackers with cheese, for instance.

In praise of fruit salad

All of which brings me back to fruit salad! Fruit is an important part of a healthy balanced diet. Fruits contains both soluble and insoluble fibre, as well as numerous vitamins and trace minerals that are essential for good health.

And the best way to eat them? Whole! Or at least, minimally processed by simply cutting them into bite-size pieces.

Cutting fruit to make a fruit salad means that you can eat a variety of different fruits at one time, without having to eat a mountain of fruit! It also enables you to combine complimentary flavours in one dish. Unlike a smoothie, where every mouthful tastes the same, one bite might be raspberry-orange, the next peach-grape, and a third apple-blueberry. A delicious variety!

30 different plants per week

You may have heard about recommendations to eat at least 30 different plants per week. This guidance encourages consumption of a wider variety of fruits, vegetables, grains and herbs. A diverse selection of plant-based foods will be much better for your health than eating the same few vegetables or fruits day-in and day-out.

Making fruit salad is a great way to add new and different fruits and herbs to your diet. Enjoying a selection of chopped mixed fruits can help to push your total weekly plant intake up to 30 and beyond!

The best fruits for a fruit salad

Really, you can use any fruits for a fresh fruit salad. We usually combine fruits from a few of the following categories, but you can stick to one category if you prefer. These are not scientific categories! I just find them a useful way to group fruits when thinking about fruit salad.

Melons

• Green melon – galia, piel de sapo (my favourite!), honeydew etc
• Cantaloupe – or other orange-fleshed melon
• Watermelon

Tropical and exotic fruits

• Pineapple
• Mango
• Passion fruit
• Dragon fruit – sometimes called pitaya
• Custard apple
• Kiwi fruit
• Physalis – aka Cape gooseberry
• Star fruit – sometimes called carambola
• Lychees
• Figs

Citrus fruits

• Oranges
• Mandarins, clementines or satsumas
• Grapefruit
• Pomelo
• Lemon and lime – just the zest or a squeeze of juice to ‘season’!

Stone fruits and Pome fruits – fruits with seeds inside

• Peaches and nectarines
• Plums
• Cherries
• Apricots
• Apples
• Pears
• Loquats
• Quince – these need cooking before eating, but poached quince pieces in a fruit salad with peaches and plums are delicious!

Berries and miscellaneous others

• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Blackberries
• Blueberries
• Red and black currants – also lovely for garnishing
• Grapes – red, black and green
• Pomegranate seeds
• Banana – personally, I dislike banana in a fruit salad as it goes kind of slimy, but if you like it, go for it! You do you.

Assembling a great fruit salad

To make a really great fruit salad, we usually try and choose one or two fruits from each of these categories. So for instance we might have:

honeydew melon + mango + orange + pear + raspberries

or

cantaloupe + pineapple + grapefruit + peach + blueberries

There are so many different variations! You can mix it up and decide which combinations you find the yummiest. For instance, DH really likes mango and raspberry together. I love pear and peach. Delicious and healthy fruit salad never gets boring!

Extra flavours for your fruit salad

Despite the name, a fruit salad doesn’t only have to contain fruit. You can make it extra special by adding additional layers of flavour, such as:

• fresh herbs, such as mint, basil or lemon balm
• spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger or star anise
• citrus zest or a squeeze of juice – lemon, lime or orange
• a splash of fruity liqueur such as cherry brandy, Grand Marnier or creme de cassis – perfect for a special occasion!
• a drizzle of maple syrup or honey – this can add a lovely warm flavour, especially in combination with spices, but of course this does add a little sugar so should be used sparingly

In Winter you can also make a warm fruit salad by pouring a cup of hot, spicy herbal tea over your fruits and leaving them to macerate and infuse for a short while before serving.

How to make a beautiful fruit salad

I’ll be honest, we usually just cut up the fruits into bite-sized pieces, and mix them together in a bowl. But if you want to make your fruit salad more special and beautiful, it’s easy to do!

First, choose a variety of fruits of different colours. This will ensure that your fruit salad is bright and vibrant, and not just all shades of green, for instance.

(Of course, if you want your fruit salad to be all orange, or all green, or all red, that’s certainly possible too!)

Lovely layers

For visual impact, you can layer the fruits according to colour, to make a gorgeous rainbow effect. Alternatively, arrange the prepared fruits in rows on a large platter for similar visual impact.

I also like to cut the fruit into smaller pieces to make ‘confetti’ fruit salad which looks beautiful served in individual glasses as a celebratory dessert.

For Tu B’Shevat – the Jewish New Year for trees – I like to arrange sliced and cut up fruits into the shape of a tree. It’s easy to do and looks spectacular!

You can garnish your fruit salad with fresh mint leaves, pomegranate seeds, or edible flowers to really give it the wow factor!

Can fruit salad be prepared ahead?

Fruit salad is generally best eaten within a few hours of preparation for the best texture. That said, leaving it for longer does allow the different flavours to mingle, which is also lovely!

In general, fruit salad needs to be stored in the fridge and eaten within 24-36 hours of preparation. So if you make a big bowl after dinner, you can enjoy the rest for breakfast, or a snack, or with your lunch the next day.

What to serve with fruit salad?

When eaten as a dessert, I think fruit salad requires no accompaniment, although you may like to add a drizzle of fresh cream or a scoop of ice-cream.

At breakfast time, I love my fruit salad with a dollop of natural yogurt and a sprinkle of chopped nuts, mixed seeds, or low-sugar granola.

Healthy and delicious!

I hope you agree that fruit salad is not only delicious and beautiful, but also really good for you!

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