Experts Say You Shouldn’t Eat Too Much Of This Fruit

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When it comes to fruit, we’re constantly told that the more we eat of it, the better. “Do you eat your daily fruits and vegetables?” is a question that many of us anticipate with dread when going to our doctor for our yearly checkups. But is there such a thing as eating too much fruit?

Experts say that eating too much of some fruits, like grapes, could actually be harmful. Here are five ways that overeating grapes could have a negative impact on your health.

1. Inorganic Grapes Are Lathered With Pesticides

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Grapes rank number five on the Environmental Working Group’s 2018 list of fruits and veggies with the highest levels of pesticide residue. Frequently eating foods with high levels of pesticides can damage your nervous system, increase your risk of breast cancer and weaken your immune system. Buying organic grapes could help you avoid this problem, but a bag from Whole Foods will cost you $5.15, double the price of your Starbucks iced coffee (and you thought that was an indulgence).

2. Sugar Overload

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Both red and green grapes contain 15 grams of sugar per cup, which is one gram more than a medium-sized banana, another fruit which is infamously high in sugar. The grapes with the highest sugar content are Cotton Candy Grapes, packing 28 grams of sugar in a one-cup serving. If you’re a grape-lover like us, you’re more than likely to freely pop grapes into your mouth without paying attention to the one-cup serving size suggestion. You can easily end up eating a whole bag of grapes without even realizing it, and since most bags contain about eight cups of grapes, you’ll have eaten a whopping 120 grams of sugar in one sitting.

3. Carbs Galore

When thinking of foods high in carbohydrates, grapes are probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Instead, your mind probably turns to images of mouth-watering bowls of cheesy pasta, that French baguette you’ve been dreaming of, or the pizza shop around the corner with the most delicious homemade dough… you get the picture. Surprisingly though, with 16 grams of carbohydrates per cup, grapes pack quite the carb punch. Carbs aren’t inherently bad for you, and if you’re on a 2,000-calorie diet, you should aim to eat 225 to 325 grams of carbs a day. But we’ve already discussed that when eating grapes it’s easy to go overboard, and if you end up eating an entire bag, you’ll have eaten around 128 grams of carbs, only 97 grams less than your daily carbohydrate recommendation. Meaning that if you also eat a cup of rice, a medium banana, a standard apple, and a few baby carrots that same day, you’ll already have exceeded your daily carb allotment.

4. Eating Too Much Fiber Is a Thing

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In general, fiber is great for us and it can help with weight management as it makes us feel full for longer. But consuming too much of anything can be harmful, and consuming too much fiber could lead to uncomfortable issues like bloating and diarrhea or constipation (depending on how your body reacts to it). One cup of grapes contains roughly one gram of fiber, and if you eat a whole bag, you’ll be getting approximately eight grams of fiber in one sitting. If you’re not used to eating a lot of fiber, you risk getting a stomach ache, uncomfortable gas (and we all know how awkward that can be), and in worse cases, you could experience gastrointestinal issues like diarrhea and constipation (ain’t nobody got time for that). To avoid these issues, you’re better off munching on a few grapes and putting the rest of the bag away for later.

5. If You’re Eating A Whole Bag, The Calories Rack Up

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One cup of grapes contains a modest amount of calories, 62 to be exact. But since grapes are wonderfully addictive, and eating a whole bag of them comes easy, you could end up consuming 500 calories in one sitting without even knowing it. To put things into perspective, a McDonald’s cheeseburger with a small side of fries adds up to 520 calories, although the nutritional value of grapes is far superior to that of any food you’re likely to consume at McDees.

Moral of the story: grapes offer many benefits if consumed in moderation, but if you’re in a fruity mood and you want to snack on something you’re likely to eat a lot of, go for blueberries or strawberries instead. To still get the benefits provided by grapes without overeating, put a handful of nature’s candy into a bowl to snack on, rather than eating them directly from the bag.

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