Fructarians (or 'fruitarians') are a subgroup of vegan who eat only the fruit of plants. This includes not only what one typically thinks of as a "fruit" in the culinary sense such as apples and Orange (fruit)s, but also other foods that are botanically the fruits of flowering plants (that is, the seed-containing reproductive parts), including all berries, nut (fruit)s, seeds, peppers, tomatoes, squash, beans, peas, grains, etc.
Fructarians only eat the fruit of a plant, so that the plant does not have to be killed (when one eats a carrot, which is the root of that plant, the whole carrot plant dies). Fructarians note that, in many cases, eating fruit does the parent plant a favor. Fleshy fruit is "designed" to be eaten by animals and either travel through the animal's digestive tract before it sprouts in a pile of ready-made fertilizer; or, in the case of fruits with cores or pits, to be carried away from the parent plant, eaten, and the core or pit which contains the seeds or is the seed, tossed aside to sprout. Without animals eating fruit, the fruit would not travel far enough away from the parent plant to grow successfully. Many plants depend on animals for Biological dispersal.
However, a fructarian diet is very difficult to follow, and on a long-term basis fructarians often suffer Illnesses related to poor nutrition. For example, Vitamin B12 cannot be found in any fruit matter (B12 is manufactured by bacteria, and so if you clean a fruit, there will be little on it). The high sugar content of their diet can cause diabetes mellitus or hypoglycemia-type symptoms, while it is lacking in protein, minerals, and fat-soluble vitamins. Long-term fructarians are prone to food cravings and consequent binge-eating, either of 'allowed' foods or 'illegal' ones, and they often become addicted to Date (fruit) (for their high sugar content) and avocados (for their high fat content). Some fructarians develop a type of eating disorder called orthorexia nervosa.
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer, was a fructarian during the 1970s.
