A university athlete, Jacqueline Alnes’s season was cut short by a series of inexplicable neurological symptoms. What started with a cough escalated to a collapse on the track and months of episodes that stole her ability to walk and even speak. Two years after quitting the team to heal, Alnes’s symptoms returned with a severity that led to months in a wheelchair but left doctors mystified. Desperate for answers, she turned to an online community centred around two wellness gurus – Queensland’s ‘Durianrider’ and his then-girlfriend ‘Freelee the Banana Girl’ – who claimed that a strict, all-fruit diet could cure conditions like depression, addiction, anxiety and vision problems. Alnes wasn’t alone. From all over the world, people in pain, doubted or dismissed by medical authorities, or seeking a miracle diet, turned to fruit in hope of a cure. A powerful personal narrative, The Fruit Cure is also a damning inquiry into the sinister strains of wellness culture that prey on people’s vulnerabilities through schemes, scams and diets masquerading as hope.
This review was published in the MAR/MAY 2024Â issue of The Art of Healing.
