Fruits and vegetables are undoubtedly filled with lots of nutrients that

contribute to good health, but following a strict fruit and vegetable diet plan
that includes no other categories of foods can set you up for some potentially
serious health problems.

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Solely relying on fruits and vegetables for all your meals can make it difficult to
meet your protein needs. Although they provide many vitamins and minerals,
they're also high in carbohydrates, which can lead to other health problems
when eaten in excess.

Lack of Protein
Fruits and vegetables contain tons of vitamins and minerals, but they're both
low in protein, which is an essential part of a healthy diet. Protein plays a
number of important roles in your body. The macronutrient is used to:

 Create bones, cartilage, muscle, skin, hair and nails (which are made
mostly of protein).
 Repair damaged tissue and build new tissue.
 Carry oxygen and vital nutrients to every cell in your body.
 Help you digest food.
 Regulate hormones (especially during times of growth, like puberty or
pregnancy).
 Keep you feeling full and help you maintain your weight.

Getting enough protein every day is a vital part of making sure your body is
running as it should. Without it, your body will begin to break down. One
study, published in Scientific Reports in April 2016, compared no- and low-
protein diets to moderate-protein diets and found that the diets with the least
amount of protein increased the risk of fatty liver and muscle breakdown. Low-
protein diets were also linked to increased body fat and weight gain.

Your Protein Needs

Some fruits and vegetables contain protein. For example, green peas contain
8.6 grams per cup, spinach contains 5.3 grams per cup and a cup of
asparagus offers 4.3 grams. A cup of guava contains 4.2 grams of protein,
while a cup of avocados and a cup of apricots contain 4.0 and 2.2 grams,
respectively.

The current recommendation for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body
weight. That means that, if you weigh 150 pounds, you need about 55 grams
per day. If you weigh 175 pounds, that number jumps to 64 grams. While you
could technically meet those numbers with fruits and vegetables, it would take
a huge volume that would be hard to get down in one day. To put it into
perspective, if you weigh 175 pounds, you'd have to eat more than 12 cups of
cooked spinach to get enough protein.

Read more: 8 Unconventional Protein Sources and Tips to Add More Protein
to Your Diet

Fruits and Vegetables: Incomplete Proteins

But it's not just the amount of protein that's a concern — it's the quality.
Proteins are classified as either complete or incomplete based on their amino
acid profile. Your body needs a total of 20 amino acids to carry out its basic
functions. Of these amino acids, 11 are considered nonessential because
your body can make them on its own. The other nine are considered essential
because your body can't make them and you have to get them from your diet.

Protein sources that contain all nine essential amino acids are classified as
"complete" proteins, while sources that are missing some or that are low in
any of the essential amino acids are deemed "incomplete" proteins. Animal
foods, like meat, poultry, seafood and eggs, are complete proteins, whereas
most plant-based proteins, like fruits and vegetables, are incomplete proteins.

That means that, even if you're hitting your protein quantity goals by eating a
ton of servings of vegetables per day, you'll probably still be missing essential
amino acids that are vital to your health. The Cleveland Clinic notes that your
diet will also likely be low in vitamin B12, calcium, vitamin D, iodine and
omega-3 fatty acids, as well.

Overdoing It on Fructose
But the lack of protein isn't the only problem. It's also that fruits and
vegetables are high in carbohydrates. Granted, many of those carbohydrates
come in the form of fiber, but a lot are also in the form of fructose, which is
the main sugar in fruit.

As part of a healthy, balanced diet, the fructose you'll get from eating some
fruit here and there isn't going to cause a problem; but when fructose makes
up the bulk of your diet, it has the potential to lead to some serious issues.
According to a study published in Nutrients in April 2017, consuming a lot of
fructose over a period of several days can increase the levels of uric acid, a
metabolic waste product, in your blood. Chronic high levels of uric acid are
associated with metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, heart disease,
kidney disease, Type 2 diabetes and cognitive decline.

Another study, published in Digestive Diseases and Sciences in May 2016 looked
specifically at the effect of fructose on your liver. Fructose is not absorbed like
other sugars. Instead of entering the bloodstream via the small intestine,
fructose goes straight to the liver through your portal vein. When it reaches
the liver, fructose prompts a process called de novo lipogenesis, or the
creation of fat from carbohydrates, which can lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver
disease, insulin resistance and increased abdominal fat.

Read more: List of Foods High in Fructose

Other Problems With Excess Carbohydrates

Researchers from another study, published in Diabetes Care in April 2013,
compared the effects of a high-protein diet to a high-carbohydrate diet. They
put two groups of participants on separate diets. One was high in protein, but
low in carbohydrates, while the other was high in carbohydrates, but low in
protein, like a fruit and vegetable diet plan.

Both diets were designed to provide the same amount of calories and
micronutrients. While participants in both groups lost weight, the high-protein
diet improved insulin sensitivity, increased the function of the beta cells (that
produce insulin) in the pancreas and increased metabolic rate, while the high-
carbohydrate diet did not.

The high-protein diet also decreased markers of chronic inflammation and

oxidative stress, which is the underlying cause of many chronic diseases. The
high-carbohydrate diet did not.
Fruit and Vegetable Diet Plan
If you're looking for a way to improve your health, or you just want to eat more
fruits and vegetables every day, there are ways to do it without following such
a restrictive diet plan. Consider going plant-based, which means your diet
contains a lot fruits and vegetables, as well as ample amounts of protein-rich
foods like nuts, seeds and legumes and some high-quality meats and animal
protein sources, like chicken, grass-fed beef, eggs, fish and dairy products.

Harvard Health Publishing notes that a plant-based diet contains all of the
necessary nutrients, like protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals,
that you need to sustain optimal health, unlike a fruit and vegetable diet plan,
which can leave you lacking in protein and fat. A plant-based diet is also
higher in fiber and important antioxidants and phytochemicals than diets that
don't contain a lot of plant foods.

If you want to get healthier, start by eating more servings of vegetables per
day, instead of following a restrictive fruit and vegetable diet plan that leaves
you at risk of health problems.

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