“Eating banana, grapes, mango or pineapple at night could interfere with rest”

The Internet and social networks are fertile ground for nutritional myths, and the latest to gain strength has a name and surname. Recently, some statements attributed to cardiologist Aurelio Rojas they suggested that consuming fruits such as bananas, grapes, mango or pineapple at night could directly interfere with our rest, fragment sleep and cause us to wake up exhausted. But the truth is that the available evidence does not agree with this information.

The late-night carb debate. The main argument for discouraging tropical or sweeter fruits at night is usually based on the glycemic response. It is true that our body does not metabolize macronutrients exactly the same at eight in the morning as at ten at night, and it is something that is studied a lot and even has its own name: chrononutrition.

Studied. A recent meta-analysis published in it Journal of the American Nutrition Association addressed precisely this question and their results concluded that, indeed, eating carbohydrates at night produces higher post-meal glucose values ​​than if they are consumed in the morning. However, the study found no clear differences in insulin response.

In this way, the fact that a banana or some grapes raise glucose slightly more at night does not prove, by itself, that they will worsen the quality of our sleep.

At the extremes. Another thing is that we go, as always, towards the extremes and we are faced with a case of a person who gorges on fruit at night where logically they will have heavy digestion and a more fragmented sleep. Because here precisely one of the tips that experts always give to deal with insomnia problems is to have a light dinner and not immediately before going to bed.

But logically we are not faced with this situation, but with the pretext of eating a little fruit in the evening, which is quite positive.

Fruit is not an enemy. Far from being a big problem for our night’s rest, fruits could be great allies for our pillow. Here, an article published in 2025 in Sleep Health analyzed The relationship between the consumption of these foods and rest patterns, and experts found that a higher intake of fruits and vegetables during the day was, in fact, associated with less sleep fragmentation during the following night.

Specifically, it was estimated that consuming around 5 cups of fruits and vegetables daily is related to a 16% improvement in overall sleep quality.

The advice. In this way we can see that suggesting that anyone should stop eating fruit because of sleep fragmentation has no basis. Another thing is that there is some type of digestive problem or even diabetes that may discourage eating this type of food, but for the vast majority of the population this problem should not exist.

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