Most people agree that fiber is good for us, and for this reason some nutritionists tell us we should eat fruit, which contains fiber.

True, it does contain fiber. But it also contains a lot of carbohydrate. One small apple, for example, contains about 3 grams of fiber and 16 grams of carbohydrate. A small pear has approximately 3 grams of fiber and 21 grams of carbohydrate.

I don't generally eat apples and pears. One gram of carbohydrate makes my blood glucose (BG) level increase by about 5 points, so a small apple would increase it about 65 points, if I subtracted the fiber from the total carbs. Eating carbs along with other foods does mitigate the BG rise somewhat, but the rise is still not insignificant.

Engineer and author Derek Paice has graphed the BG increases when several people, both type 1 and type 2, ate a small apple both with and without some fat. You can see the graphs here.

However, although apples are generally not on my menus, right now, when the trees in my field are producing so many apples and pears that the sheep can't eat them all, I've given in to temptation, and I've started eating one or two slices of apple or pear after a meal.

I try not to eat more than this, though. One day when I was cutting up apple branches that had fallen from the trees, using a bow saw, I picked up an apple and took a bite. It was so delicious that I threw caution to the wind, along with the core, and ate the entire apple. When I went back into the house, despite the hard work of sawing up the branches and hauling them back to the barn, my BG levels were higher than I like to see them.

I do eat berries, which have less carbohydrate and don't seem to make my BG levels go up much at all. A whole cup of raspberries, for example, has 14 grams of carbohydrate and 8 grams of fiber.

And if you're trying to follow a low-carbohydrate diet, I think those of you who really miss fruit should try different kinds of fruits in different amounts and see what you can tolerate. Then limit yourself to those fruits and those amounts rather than giving fruit up entirely.

In the winter, I find that some fruit-flavored gelatin dessert somewhat mitigates my craving for fruit.

But in fact, we don't need to eat fruit at all to get our fiber. There are other sources.

Vegetables have fiber. A cup of broccoli or cauliflower, for example, has 5 grams of carbohydrate and 3 grams of fiber. In my book, that's a much better deal than an apple, with the same amount of fiber but more than three times as much carbohydrate.

Even better are the greens: 3 cups of raw spinach, for example, contains only 3 grams of carbohydrate and 2 grams of fiber. Whereas a small orange (and who ever actually eats small pieces of fruit?), often touted as so much healthier than orange juice (and it is) still contains 11 grams of carbohydrate and only 2 grams of fiber . With the spinach, you get the same amount of fiber with a lot less carbohydrate.