I had a friend who was plagued with traveller's constipation when she went anywhere overnight. She could just be visiting the in-laws a few hours away and she'd be stopped up for days (shy colon maybe?). The one thing that she said did the trick for her, better than over-the-counter laxatives or teas, was dried apricots. As a result, she never left the house without a bag of them stashed in her purse.

If we could speculate that it's the dried fruit's high fibre content leading to my friend's relief, then perhaps it's no surprise that data recently presented at the American Dietetic Association (ADA) Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo in Denver found that eating dried fruits is associated with lower body weight measures. Higher fibre intake has been associated with lower body weight, after all.

Although the study was funded by the California Raisin Marketing Board, and was measuring overall diet quality by something called the Healthy Eating Index (my regular readers know how I feel about reducing food to a series of numbers in an index), it did find that those who consumed dried fruit ate more fruit in total and had significantly higher intakes of whole fruit and whole grains.

Dried fruits aren't a bad thing to have once in a while. They're generally high in fibre, which balances out the fact that they're also high in fruit sugars. Depending on the fruit, you'll likely get a good hit of phytonutrients and minerals, too. I find using whole dried dates is a good way to sweeten a smoothie using a whole food instead of a fractionated sweetener.

But make sure you find dried fruits that are "unsulphured". Sulphur compounds are often added to dried fruits to preserve their colour, but they cause severe reactions in sensitive individuals (which often overlaps asthma sufferers). Sulphites aren't good for any of us, really, so try to find dried fruits that don't use them. Organic products won't be using sulphites, but generally you can tell by the colour of the fruit - if it's still brightly coloured, it probably has sulphites. As anyone who's left a skinless apple out too long can tell you, dried fruit is naturally brown.


The Healthy Foodie is Doug DiPasquale, Holistic Nutritionist and trained chef, living in Toronto. You can email him with questions at dugdeep@gmail.com.