A few months ago I felt like I wanted to try a detox. There was nothing particularly wrong, I just felt a bit sluggish, like my system could use a clean-out and jump start. After doing some research and consulting my doctor, I decided to try a week of eating nothing but fruit.

I went down to my local fruit market and bought huge amounts of every fruit imaginable. I get bored with food easily, so it was important for me to have a wide variety to choose from, and lots of it. After all, I’d be eating about six small meals every day for seven days — that’s 42 meals of nothing but fruit. I knew it was going to be difficult, but I thought about how good I’d probably feel afterward, and I figured I could put up with just about anything for a week.

I was wrong. By the end of the second day, the headaches were unbearable. At first I thought it was just coincidence, but then I noticed that my head would hurt worse about 20 minutes after eating a bowl of fruit. I suspected it had something to do with my blood sugar levels, but I wasn’t sure. Not wanting to take any synthetic medication unless I had to, I decided to see if I could find any information online, any natural tips to help bring my body back into balance without giving up on the detox.

Much to my surprise, I not only found tips, but I found several web sites dedicated to groups of people who have elected to eat nothing but raw fruit for the rest of their lives. They are called fruitarians, and although the definition of that word can vary from person to person, generally speaking they eat nothing but raw fruit at every single meal, every day. They claim that is not only a healthy way to live, but that it is a morally and ethically strong diet as well, as it does not require any animal products, nor any fossil fuel energy to prepare the food. Some fruitarians also believe that their diet is similar to that of Adam and Eve, and that eating such a diet brings them closer to God.

Sadly, despite my desire to make it through the week, I gave up in the middle of the third day. Almost as soon as I started eating other foods, my headaches went away and I started to feel better. Again, I was curious as to what factors were at work in my body, so I asked around on some fruitarian forums.

There were a lot of varied responses. Most of the dedicated fruitarians gave me nearly identical stories that the headaches were a sort of withdrawal symptom, caused by the sudden absence of the “junk” (often defined as “anything other than fruit”) that I’ve been tormenting my body with all these years. Going back to my old diet, according to some of them, was kind of the food equivalent of a drug addict going back to drugs to avoid the pain and hassle of quitting the habit.

On the other extreme, there were some people (a few of whom claimed to be medical professionals) who reassured me that I had done the right thing by giving up on the fruitarian detox, and that it wasn’t a healthy way to live. As a permanent lifestyle, it doesn’t provide much in the way of proteins, which is a concern. But even over short periods, a diet formed of only one kind of food, no matter what it is, can have dramatic effects on the body as a whole.

The fruitarians countered by claiming that the naysayers were just making childish excuses because they weren’t disciplined enough to stick with the fruitarian diet.

Eventually I quietly backed away from the argument and left them to it; obviously nutrition is a topic that some people feel very passionately about. I was glad for the insight from both sides, but in the end I think I made the right choice for myself, even though others have had better experiences.

One could argue the health aspects of an all-fruit diet, but the fact is that there are people out there living this lifestyle, and allegedly thriving on it. Clearly it’s not for everyone, as my own personal experiment demonstrated, but certainly it can be done. If you are thinking about trying an all-fruit detox or converting to a full-time diet of nothing but fruit, it is important to consult your doctor first to make sure it is the right choice for you, and do your best to educate yourself on the possible health ramifications of making such a bold change to your eating habits.