Recipes for Bad Bellies: Fructose Friendly Mason Jar Fruit Salad

Following on from last week’s post, this week I decided to try making a Mason Jar Fruit Salad.

I adapted this recipe for Triple Berry Nut Salad. In order to make the salad more fructose friendly, I substituted maple syrup for the honey. And, just because I like them, I added in some kiwi fruit, swapped the whole almonds for shaved almonds, and had some Greek yoghurt on the side. Greek yoghurt can also be generally better for bad bellies than other yoghurts, as it is less likely to contain thickeners made from wheat or other ingredients with high amounts of fructose or fructans, and tends to contain less lactose than other yoghurt.

Here is my recipe:

Ingredients

For the dressing:

Juice from half an orange

Juice from half a lemon

2 tsp of olive oil

1 tsp of maple syrup

For the salad:

1 punnet of strawberries, quartered

½ cup of blackberries

½ cup of raspberries

1 kiwi fruit, sliced

½ cup blueberries

Approx. 2 tsp of shaved almonds

Greek yoghurt

Instructions

• Combine the orange juice, lemon juice, olive oil and maple syrup for the dressing, and mix well. Add this to the bottom of the jar.
• Add the blackberries and raspberries.
• Add the strawberries.
• Add the kiwi fruit.
• Add the blueberries.
• Because the shaved almonds will quickly become soggy from touching the fruit, put them in a zip-lock bag. Then, fold up the bag, and put it in the top of the jar.

• During your lunch break at work, tip out the salad onto a plate, add the yoghurt to the side, and enjoy.

Note, however, that this recipe does not work with frozen berries! I learned this the hard way when the time came to eat the salad, and I discovered that there was now a lot more juice in the jar than before. Below is a photo what happened when I tipped the salad out onto a plate. It was a little difficult to eat like this, but still tasted okay. I realised that the frozen berries must have released more liquid as they defrosted overnight. Additionally, the fruit had compacted down quite significantly since the day before when I had prepared the salad, and I believe this is because the fruit had also softened during the night, possibly also due to the berries defrosting. I have therefore also concluded that this salad must be eaten quickly, and can only be made with fresh fruit!