Ray Peat on Fruits

January 3, 2026

Understanding and meeting your body's nutritional needs

"You need to learn to recognize what your body needs at any given time. This will be easier if your basic diet looks something like the one described above: a moderately low-calorie diet, a fairly high-protein diet with high-quality proteins such as eggs, milk and leafy greens, as well as fresh fruit or vegetables daily."

Nutrition for Women

Eating patterns: Combine protein, fat and carbohydrates

"Eat frequently and combine protein, fat, and carbohydrates at the same time, e.g., an egg and an orange or a carrot with cheese. Fruit is the best source of carbohydrates; avoid uncooked starches such as nuts."

Nutrition for Women

Essential amino acids and the global food question

"What seems to be essential is the carbon skeleton of the essential amino acids. If the diet provides these along with other nutrients, protein in the diet no longer seems so indispensable. If fruits and vegetables containing these substances can be found, the global food problem could easily be solved."

Nutrition for Women

Lifestyle choices to slow aging and extend lifespan

"Altitude and a dairy-based diet are clearly two important thermogenic factors that slow the accumulation of harmful adaptations, but there are many other modifiable factors that could extend lifespan even further. It is important to reduce pro-inflammatory factors, and personal choices can make a big difference—for example, choosing easily digestible foods to reduce endotoxins; avoiding polyunsaturated fats, which disrupt cellular respiration and form pro-inflammatory prostaglandins; avoiding antioxidant supplements, which create a reductive excess; and choosing foods containing anti-inflammatory thermogenic compounds, such as citrus fruits with their high flavonoid content, which supports cellular respiration."

November 2020 – Ray Peats Newsletter

Factors for healthier pregnancies and a better postpartum period

"The most important factors that can be optimized with existing resources. Healthier pregnancies lead to a healthier and happier life after birth. These factors would include sunlight, vitamin D, milk, cheese, eggs, fruit and well-cooked vegetables, fiber-rich foods, and optimizing thyroid function and pregnenolone and progesterone (which support mitochondrial function and protect against aldosterone, parathyroid hormone, excess serotonin, CRK and cortisol, as well as increasing allopregnanolone) – and, if necessary, the use of the safest anti-inflammatory and antiserotonergic medications such as aspirin and cyproheptadine."

May 2019 – Ray Peats Newsletter

Diastolic heart failure: a common age-related condition

"The diastolic, relaxed phase of the heart contraction cycle often fails under stress or with age – even in fruit flies. The heart stiffens and no longer fills completely, so that it pumps less blood with each beat."

March 2018 – Ray Peat's Newsletter

The flavonoid dilemma: Antioxidants or pro-oxidants?

“Several of the flavonoids from fruits and vegetables (rutin, naringenin, naringin, hesperetin, apigenin, fisetin, luteolin, quercetin, curcumin) have a catalytic pro-oxidative effect, similar to that of vitamin C and aspirin.”

January 2017 – Ray Peats Newsletter

Defense mechanisms against nitric oxide: the nutritional approach

"Among the most important defense mechanisms against nitric oxide are progesterone, vitamin E, vitamin K, vitamin A, niacinamide, coffee, aspirin, and foods containing flavonoids, terpenoids, polyphenols, and sterols. Milk from grass-fed cows contains a variety of polyphenols. Citrus fruits, many tropical fruits (e.g., guavas, longans, and lychees), and cooked mushrooms are good sources of apigenin, naringenin, and related compounds."

January 2016 – Ray Peats Newsletter

Consider dietary alternatives before considering Cytomel supplementation

"Before using a Cytomel (T3) supplement, it may be possible to solve the problem through diet alone. A piece of fruit or a glass of juice or milk between meals and sufficient animal protein (or potato protein) in the diet are sometimes enough for the liver to produce the hormone."

– Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

Dietary practices to minimize cortisol production

"Other dietary practices can minimize our cortisol production (e.g., combining fruit and protein, as protein-rich foods lower blood sugar and stimulate the release of cortisol)."

October 1990 – Ray Peats Newsletter

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