High sugar and little vegetables diet for main race?

[Swordfry]

One of my main races is a mostly forest dwelling race that depend heavily on trees as a natural resource. This is mainly because my world, or at least this continent I have developed, is very heavily forested and has more woodland than non-wooded land. So one idea I came up with for this race is for them to have real sweet teeth, lol. They eat like a ton of fruit. They are still omnivores, and eat meat regularly, but I would say that they have very little vegetable intake.

What all would this sort of diet entail? One with lots of natural sugar from fruits, and with little vegetable intake? I know it's hard to tell since I have yet to really decide exactly what fruits will be available. Pretty much a wide range of non-tropical fruits. Grapes, apples, peaches, and pears will most likely be the ones.

Anyone that knows anything at all about nutrition, please help me out here. I just want to make sure I am not setting up something bad.


This race also discovered honey as that is a thing in my forests too. They love that stuff to death and even have a watery, primitive form of mead that a lot of them drink. The same goes for tree sap from various trees, especially maple ones. They will even have maple mead if that makes sense.

As for agriculture: They do not have much, but they do raise orchards of new fruit trees outside of the forests. They do this to mimic the fruit trees in the forest and to mass produce fruit.


Any tips, help on what a diet like this would be like would be very much appreciated.

 

[Saigonnus]

At a basic level, sugar equals energy the brain uses to keep the body functioning. The problem is that simple sugars in fruit burn very quickly, meaning they would have to eat it almost constantly.

I think evolution would simply allow them to adapt to consuming lots of sugars with little consequences.

Maybe this is accomplished by having their liver and kidneys process it slower, more efficiently or perhaps they would develop a new organ that serves to store the sugars away for when the body needs them.

I think the race would have more energy and to others would seem hyper all the time.


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[KC Trae Becker]

Berries would be common in the forest, too. Acorns are a frequent staple of forest dwellers. Many cultures have developed under these conditions.

There are wild vegetables in the woods, especially in marshy areas near rivers. Googling wild edible foods or getting a hold of a field guide from a library will give you a wealth of info about foods available to temperate forest dwellers.

There are also some health diets that are almost exclusively fruit based, with little or no ill effects for humans. I don't think you need to evolve new organs or anything to create this culture, unless you want to.

 

[Penpilot]

Honestly, you don't need to get into such detail. You just have to set up your environment and use some common sense as to what your species will eat. Everything else can be hand-waved away by saying they evolved to survive on what ever diet you want them to survive on.

Remember these aren't humans so human nutritional requirements and restrictions don't necessarily have to apply unless you want them to.

If memory serves Humming birds survive on nectar and bugs, which is similar to what you're describing. Unless it's important to the story, you don't have to go into exacting detail.