The Fruit Cure (Melville House, Jan. 2024) chronicles debut author and creative writing professor Jacqueline Alnes’s experience with a sudden, debilitating illness when she was a college athlete. “Praying to the light of my laptop,” Alnes writes, she was taken in by fruitarianism, a diet subculture whose practitioners eat only fruits, seeds, and nuts. Alnes spoke with PW about the isolation of living with illness, the dangers of being desperate for answers, and the dark side of the wellness industry.
How did you find fruitarianism?
I was a Division I athlete; I was really in tune with my body. My freshman year, I had bronchitis, the doctor said, plus a long and mysterious set of neurological symptoms that affected my vision and speech and my ability to walk. I stayed in my apartment most of the time, and I did what any of us would do—I turned to the internet. I spent a lot of time asking questions of Google that I was scared to ask anyone else. It was then that I found this website that told me if I ate fruit, I could heal myself from anything.
What did conventional medicine practitioners say about your illness?
The athletic doctor, my coach, and the neurologist I went to at the hospital all told me I should be able to run. I started to doubt my own reality. I asked Google desperate questions like ‘Will I walk again?’—which of course it can’t answer. So many people are dismissed, ignored, or failed by medical systems. That feeling leads people—even when they have common sense and know their bodies well—to turn toward cures that don’t have any evidence to back them up.
You were more vegan than fully fruitarian. Why didn’t you adopt the fruitarian diet?
I had this deep-down fear: if I did go fruitarian and didn’t heal myself, did that mean that I was the most incurable person? It felt like another way I could fail: I had failed to be a runner, I had failed to run through the pain, I had failed to find a diagnosis. I resisted going fully in, because that scared me.
What do you want readers to know about the wellness industry?
I interviewed dieticians who gave me a lot of helpful context about the language people use when they talk about healing, the promises they make, and how to distinguish between a lie being told for the sake of selling something and a truth that might help you. I hope people take away the idea that they can trust in their symptoms and what they’re feeling.
Did you feel vulnerable sharing your story?
I would sometimes run through the house to tell my husband about some research I found that mirrored my experience so intensely, it felt like I was being seen, even if it was by someone halfway around the world and 100 years ago. I’m grateful for the opportunities I got to think about my experience in light of a whole history, to feel less alone, and to have the tools moving forward to contextualize the experience I had. I have more confidence in and love for my body and myself as a result, and I hope readers will feel that about themselves, too.
