Did you know bananas are the most widely eaten fruit in the US? People eat over 27 pounds of the tropical fruit every year. And now add to that the global consumption, it’s crazy!
Sure, bananas are somewhat healthy, but there are more reasons to avoid them than to eat them in excess, some you would have never thought of.
Here are 10 reasons why you shouldn’t eat bananas. Read on and make your own choice. As consumers, we decide what supermarkets sell; our wallets are our way to vote. Are bananas what they say they are?
Don’t Eat Bananas For Breakfast, Bananas Make You Sleepy
A compound in bananas called tryptophan causes sleepiness, laziness and leaves you lethargic. It’s an amino acid and an essential precursor of serotonin — the sleep hormone.
If you have bananas in your morning cereal bowl, your day might not be as productive as you wish. Eating bananas before bedtime might sound like a good idea then, but it isn’t. It will mess with your teeth and cause you stomach ache.
They Can Give You Migraines
Do you have a sensitivity to cheeses that are aged like blue cheese to the point that you get migraines? Then it means you are sensitive to tyramine and banana peels are loaded with tyramine as well. Therefore, it is best to stay away from bananas if this is an issue.
Too Much Potassium, and Yet Not Enough
We all know you must eat bananas for their high amounts of potassium, but many other foods are better sources for the mineral. Avocados have twice the potassium, and sweet potatoes, spinach, watermelon, and beans are also fantastic sources for the vital mineral, and they add fewer calories to your diet.
Also, too much potassium can be inadequate for you; you can get hyperkalemia or too much potassium in your blood. This condition is bad for your circulatory system and your heart.
Bananas Cause Cavities
Bananas are fruits, and fruits are healthy, but fruits are also nature’s candy, and they’re jam-packed with sugar. Although any sugar can feed the bacteria living in your mouth responsible for cavities, they prefer bananas because of its texture.
Bananas stick to your teeth more than other fruit, allowing bacteria to feast on it, and causing cavities. Bananas have lots of minerals as well and can change your mouth’s PH acidity levels eroding your enamel.
Bananas Are Not That Healthy
In general, fruits are healthy, but some fruit is more beneficial than other. Bananas are higher in calories than other fruits with about 100 calories per piece. And they’re not as nutritious as others.
The calorie to the nutrient ratio in bananas is quite low. Bananas are also an inferior source of fiber compared to other fruit, so literally, any other fruit is better than the tropical, bendy fruit.
Bananas Can Cause Stomach Ache
Overripe bananas are too sugary, but underripe bananas are worse; they are massively hard to digest, and they cause your body to work overtime. This causes stomach ache, cramps, and indigestion. This is the principal reason people don’t recommend eating bananas at night; the stomach discomforts can give you a hard time sleeping.
Combined With Medicine, Bananas Can Be Dangerous
For a few people, bananas can be a health hazard. For starters, some people are allergic to proteins found in bananas. Others can have an adverse reaction to the combination of bananas and certain antibacterials comprising oxazolidine. The combination can cause hypertension.
If you don’t feel great after eating bananas, you might suffer from one of the above, so monitor how you feel after eating the fruit and talk to your doctor.
Bananas Can Cause Constipation
Bananas have lots of resistant starch, which is not the good kind of starch; we can’t digest it properly. This is especially true for underripe bananas, also called green bananas. The starches haven’t been converted to sugar yet, and they can cause constipation when they reach your intestinal tract.
This might not be the case for everyone, as we all react differently to food. Either way, if you have constipation problems, evaluate if bananas might be behind the discomfort.
Bananas are Manmade and Not Available in Nature
Interestingly, the modern banana genetically combines a small sweet fruit and a large tart fruit with lots of seeds: Musa acuminata and the Musa balbisiana.
The result is a tasty banana, pleasantly sweet but with no seeds. This means bananas can’t reproduce on their own; they’re sterile. Things are a bit worse because you have to chop down the whole banana tree to get a bunch, and that’s neither efficient nor good for the environment.
Sellers Ripen Bananas Artificially
Why is it that bananas are always either overripe or underripe? The fruit’s precise ripeness period is relatively short. Actually, to get bananas to your supermarket, they’re shipped while still green, then retailers use ethylene gas to force them to ripeness. That doesn’t sound very natural, and quite a lot of work and resources for what should be an effortless low hanging fruit.
Ethylene gas is harmless in theory, but do you really want fruit artificially ripened?
Bananas Have a Huge Environmental Footprint
Chances are bananas don’t grow in your back yard. You need a lot of heat and humidity to grow the yellow fruit, which means the bananas you buy come from far away.
The top five banana producing countries are India, China, the Philippines, Ecuador, and Brazil. If you consider ships, trucks, and trains must carry them to your neighborhood, you can figure out they add quite a lot of harmful gasses to the environment in transport alone.
Conclusion – Bananas Are Alright, In Moderation
If you like bananas, there’s no reason to avoid them. Just don’t eat them every day! Many other fantastic fruits out there are much better than the yellow fruit, so don’t go bananas; don’t overdo them.
Stay safe, eat healthily, and eat everything in moderation. Yes, even fruit can be bad for your health if you don’t consume them right.
