Eating Fruit Daily Because We Need It

 

The Journey of Ichi's Family: fruit in our home - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Do you like to eat fruit every day? Do you eat fruit because following the crowd about healthy lifestyle campaigns or your body needs it? I have believed fruit is good for our health and could support our immune system. And I think many people try to have a healthy lifestyle by eating fruit so that their body will gain the benefits from it. However, in my view is that eating fruit daily because we need it not because of lifestyle.  

Since I was a child, I used to eat fruit that we could easily pick from my father's garden. My father grew many fruit trees in his yards and garden. His house was surrounded by plants, flowers, fruit trees, and commercial goods for instance cassava. We also sold our garden harvests such as jack fruit and pineapple. When the mango season came, we ate mango every day even shared it with neighbors and family because we had lots of mangoes! Sometimes, our pineapple bloomed and we could not eat them all, then we sold them. Yes, our neighbor used to make pineapple jam for pineapple tart. Sometimes bananas, starfruit, guava, rambutan, also bloomed at the same time which meant we had any kind of fruit at home without spending money to buy them all. Papaya plant was easier to grow even we did not need to grow and maintain them, they would grow everywhere in my father yards. Our papaya plant was really amazing when we could pick papaya flower and leaf, young papaya for our dishes, but when it riped we could eat as dessert. Another fruit was soursop. Talking about soursop, it unwanted fruit because no one in the household ate this. This fruit just popped out in my father's yard, without any special maintenance this fruit grew well and produce plenty of fruit! As result, it just me who loved sour fruit including soursop, then the fruit just fell down every day. Some neighbor who wanted it just grabbed it! We were never sort of fruit even if my father did not have money. We had abundant fruit! Thanks to my father who loved gardening!

Besides learning to eat fruit every day at home, at the same time, I also learned what kind of vitamins in fruits that I ate at school. I started collecting my knowledge about fruit, vegetable, and vitamins, since I was at an elementary school, in the second, third, or fourth grade. I read the textbook, I also listened to what my teacher told us in the class. No wonder I knew that papaya is a source of vitamin A and if someone has constipation just eat papaya then the problem will solve. Mango, guava, pineapple, all of them are vitamin C sources which means can boost our immunity. Based on their color, I could easily identify what vitamin inside the fruit that I eat. For example, if the color is yellow then it is the source of vitamin C, red color is the source of vitamin A; it was the way how my elementary teacher taught the students about fruit and vitamin by using color to make the students easily understand and so is about vegetable! I really remember that about it until today. 

What I can learn from my life in the past is our body needs vitamin, so basically, eating fruit routine is because we need it and not following the campaigns about healthy lifestyle.  My teacher in secondary school and the senior school asked the students in front of the class, "Do you study every day because of your duty as a student or because you need to study every day for your future?" Most of my friends said, "I study every day because it is our duty as a student." But when it came to me here was my answer, "I study every day because I need it. I have a dream, without studying it is impossible to catch my dream and have a better life in the future." And my teachers, both from secondary school and senior school told us that we need to study every day because we need it and not because of our duty as students. The word "duty" and "need", well it is hard to make difference and looks similar. However, those words completely have different meanings. "Need" means we do it without any forces and it is under full awareness. Meanwhile, "duty" means under circumstances that we have to obey. No one asked me to study every day for at least 2 hours, no one not even my father. Whenever I had an opportunity to study, I just grabbed my book and started read it. On the bus when went and came back from school, when waited for the bus, in the street while walking home from school, at home while eating dinner or late lunch; everywhere I studied because needed it. Sort of story, I have applied the word "need" when consuming my fruit. I eat fruit every day because my body needs it. It is not because a part of a healthy lifestyle like many people say. If I say that eating fruit daily is a part of my healthy lifestyle, I feel just not right, even something forcing me to do it. And because my body needs fruit, I buy a bunch of fruit every week. Yes, after the coronavirus situation, I buy our fruit once a week, and within 5 days all the fruit finishes; like the picture above, there is our fruit for 5-6 days for 2 people at home. 

The Journey of Ichi's Family: this is our fruit for a week! - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

So, what the benefits that our body gain if we eat fruit daily? I often buy orange, apple, and mango when the mango season comes. Sometimes I choose orange, pear, and dragon fruit. Or it could be orange, grape, and any other fruit such as watermelon, longan, et cetera. I would love to buy bananas, however, the banana that we want is not always on the market.  Orange, mango, and dragon fruit, they are can strengthen our immune system since all of them are vitamin C sources. Dragon fruit can help us to lower blood sugar, orange can protect our cells from damage and heals the wound. How about the pear? Pear can help us to lower the risk of diabetes and anti-inflammatory. An amazing thing is about mango; it has antioxidants and so is dragon fruit. The bottom line is the fruit has lots of vitamins and nutrients in it to protect our body. 

For me, personally, since I have consumed fruit routine, I rarely catch colds and flu. What I can remember is that I get colds or flu sometimes caught after traveling. Usually, when we travel I could not control what I eat since the foods buy from the food stall or restaurant. In general, I can not maintenance to eat fruit daily, why? Traveling has always been in rush; going here, visit there, et cetera, that explains why I do not like traveling.🤷‍♀️😅

That's what I think about eating fruit every day. We eat fruit because our bodies need it. When we realized that how much we need vitamins and nutrients for our health, then we must consume foods and fruits to protect our healthiness without any force or just lifestyle.😊

Note:

• Written by Acik Mardhiyanti
• Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti
• Do not copy this article without permission
• Do not reuse this photograph anywhere else without permission