Tu Bishvat has arrived, and over the next two days we are going to be flooded with dried fruits. But just before you give in to temptation, you should know a few things: The most dramatic problem with dried fruits is the damage to the body’s natural satiety mechanism. Fresh fruits contain about 80% to 90% water, which creates a large physical volume in the stomach and activates stretch receptors that signal to the brain, “I’m full.”
During the drying process, the water evaporates and the fruit shrinks, but the sugar and calories remain in exactly the same amount. The result is a very high “caloric density” in a small volume.
A dried apricot and a fresh apricot contain exactly the same number of calories; a bunch of grape
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