Fruit is now so full of sugar it's damaging the health of Zoo animals

S.O.T.T: Selective breeding has made the fruit we eat so full of sugar, Melbourne Zoo has had to wean its animals off it. Fruit is vital in human diets, and we all need to eat more. But at the zoo, keepers found fruit-heavy diets were making some animals obese - and rotting their teeth.

"The issue is the cultivated fruits have been genetically modified to be much higher in sugar content than their natural, ancestral fruits," says Dr Michael Lynch, the zoo's head vet.

"It's interesting. After doing a lot with nutrition here, I tend to eat less fruit."

Monkeys love bananas. But now, says Dr Lynch, the zoo's primates don't get any fruit at all.

For humans, eating fruit is associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, obesity, gastric cancer and lung cancer, an evidence review commissioned by the federal government found.

Despite fruit's sugar content, increasing your fruit intake does not increase your risk of type 2 diabetes. Fruits contain important nutrients, and fruit's natural sugars are very different from the harmful '"free sugars" in soft drinks...read more>>>...