Fruit is a Food

Until quite recently the majority of English-speaking people have been
accustomed to look upon fruit not as a food, but rather as a sweetmeat,
to be eaten merely for pleasure, and therefore very sparingly. It has
consequently been banished from its rightful place at the beginning of
meals. But fruit is not a "goody," it is a food, and, moreover, a
complete food. All vegetable foods (in their natural state) contain all
the elements necessary to form a complete food. At a pinch human life
might be supported on any one of them. I say "at a pinch" because if
the nuts cereals and pulses were ruled out of the dietary it would, for
most people, be deficient in fat and proteid (the flesh and
muscle-forming element). Nevertheless, fruit alone _will_ sustain life
if taken in large quantities with small output of energy on the part of
the person living upon it, as witness the "grape cure."[2] The
percentage of proteid in grapes is particularly high for fruit.

Those people who desire to make a fruitarian dietary their daily
_regime_ cannot do better than take the advice of O. Hashnu Hara, an
American writer. He says: "Every adult requires from twelve to sixteen
ounces of dry food, _free from water_, daily. To supply this a quarter
of a pound of _shelled_ nuts and three-quarters of a pound of any dried
fruit must be used. In addition to this, from two to three pounds of
any _fresh fruit_ in season goes to complete the day's allowance. These
quantities should be weighed out ... and will sustain a full-grown man
in perfect health and vitality. The quantity of ripe fresh fruit may be
slightly increased in summer, with a corresponding decrease in the dried
fruit."