SUGAR IN DRIED FRUITS Dried fruit is packed with nutrients, but the drying process removes the water and concentrates a lot of fruit sugar in a very small bite. The risk is that it takes more dried fruit to fill you up than whole fruits. Raisins and dates are about 60 to 65% sugar, dried figs and apricots are about 50% sugar, and prunes are about 38% sugar. The good news is that dried fruit still has the fiber, and it can be a great snack as long as you are aware of how much you are eating. Another way to weigh the pros and cons of dried fruit is to look at glycemic load, a measure of how fast your body converts a serving of food into sugar. Ideally you should eat foods with a glycemic load of 10 or less. Anything above 20 is considered very high. Prunes have a glycemic load of 10, whereas raisins have a glycemic load of 28. Compare that with whole fruits. Strawberries, apricots, grapefruit, lemon, limes, cantaloupe, nectarines, oranges, pears, blueberries, peaches, plums, apples and pineapple have glycemic loads of 6 or less.
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