After Reading this, you will NEVER look at a banana in the same way again!
Bananas Contain three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber, a banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy. Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes. But energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, maki ng it a must to add to our daily diet.
Depression:
According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel better.
PMS:
Forget the pills -- eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.
Anemia:
High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.
Blood Pressure:
This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it the perfect way to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.
Brain Power:
200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex England ) school were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.
Constipation:
High in fiber, including banan as in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.
Hangovers:
One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.
Heartburn:
Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.
Morning Sickness:
Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness
Mosquito bites:
B efore reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.
Nerves:
Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.
Overweight and at work?
Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and chips. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.
Ulcers:
The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.
Temperature control:
Many other cultures see bananas as a "cooling" fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand , for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD):
Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.
Smoking:
Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6 and B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.
Stress:
Potassium is a vital mineral which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.
Strokes:
According to research in "The New England Journal of Medicine," eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death from strokes by as much as 40%!
So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrates, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around. So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, "A banana a day keeps the doctor away!"
Footnote:
If your roses are covered with Aphids, drape banana skins over the branches, I'ts amazing, but in a day or less, they are GONE! I've tried it, and I couldn't believe it, no more aphids, as long as I save my banana skins for the rose bushes!
Impressed? Unzip a BANANA today!
The Bad and The Ugly
That's all well and fine for consumers and ORGANIC producers, but what about Chiquita and other "commercial" producers? What about the people who grow and harvest your bananas?
Life on a banana
plantation;
Growing Chiquita bananas:
pesticides and hard
work
Chiquita SECRETS Revealed
MIKE GALLAGHER & CAMERON McWHIRTER
Cincinnati Enquirer 3 May1998
On farms from Mexico to Ecuador, Chiquita and its
affiliates grow millions of bananas every year for
consumers in North America and Europe. The fruit is grown
and harvested in a labor-intensive process that involves
an army of workers, lots of equipment, crop-dusting
airplanes, foam cushions, string, bags, special cartons,
refrigerated trucks and trains, and tons of pesticides.
While
production methods vary slightly from plantation to
plantation, the basic operations illustrated below remain
the same. This illustration is a composite plantation,
drawn from Enquirer reporters' visits to Chiquita
subsidiary plantations and Chiquita-affiliated farms in
Honduras and Costa Rica, as well as interviews with
plantation workers and environmental scientists.
1. Commercial banana plants grow from 15 to 30 feet in
height and are grown in long rows on large irrigated
plantations. Most bananas consumed in the United States
are grown in the lowlands of Central and South America.
The average banana plant produces fruit about every nine
months. The stem usually grows to contain about 150
bananas. When the manager decides, the fruit is cut green
from the plant and dropped carefully on the back of a
worker carrying a cushion to stop any bruising of the
fruit.
2. Herbicides: To kill off other plants growing around
the bananas, workers apply herbicides. The chemicals are
toxic and wash into the ground and ground water during
rains.
3. Nematicides: To kill off nematodes, small worms
that attack banana plants from the roots, workers cover
the ground around the plants with nematicides. These
chemicals are highly toxic and make an area extremely
dangerous for 24 to 48 hours after application.
4. Banana plants do not have strong trunks, they can
easily be knocked over in a tropical windstorm. To
prevent 'blowdowns,' workers tie the plants down with
string.
5. Aerial spraying is an integral part of pesticide
application in commercial banana farming. The main
purpose is to combat Black Sigatoka, an airborne fungus
that can destroy a plantation's crop. In areas that are
infected with the fungus, including much of Central
America, airplanes may spray fields more than 40 times a
year.
The spray lands on the plants' upper leaves, the
ground, irrigation canals, streams and rivers and nearby
homes, workers and residents, scientists told the
Enquirer.
Workers on Chiquita subsidiary plantations and other
farms producing Chiquita bananas told the Enquirer that
they receive no warning when the planes come over and
they often hide under banana leaves to escape the
pesticide dust. Nearby villagers complain the aerial
spraying often drifts into their yards, sending children
running into the houses to escape rashes. Many worker
villages are located close to banana plantations.
6. The water used in the in the packing plants to wash
pesticides off the bananas comes from the irrigation
canals and then is routed back out into the water supply.
Chiquita has built berms in recent years on some
plantations to limit pesticides from flowing directly
into rivers. But many irrigation canals, laced throughout
every plantation, remain directly exposed to pesticides.
7. Plastic bags imbedded with the powerful chemical
chlorpyrifos protect the the growing fruit from insects
throughout its entire gestation. In previous years,the
bags were simply discarded after use, though the major
banana companies have now started recycling programs.
8. At harvesting, the stem is placed on a large
overhead cable system that runs throughout the
plantation. Workers place foam cushions among the fruit
to stop bruising. The fruit is then pushed along the
cable toward the "Empacadora," the packing
plant.
9. In the packing plant, workers remove the cushions.
Other workers then cut the stems into smaller bunches.
10. The bunchesare then put in a "pila de
seleccion," a selecting trough, where selectoras,
usually women, choose the bananas and cut them further
down to shipping size with small hooked knives.
11. Larger troughs called 'pilas des leches,"
milk troughs, wash off the pesticides applied in the
fields as well as natural fluids from the banana plant.
12. New pesticides are applied to the bunches after
they are placed on a conveyer belt. The new pesticides,
either thiabendazole or imazalil, are applied to prevent
"crown rot," a fungus that attacks the
extremities of the banana bunch. On some plantations,
Chiquita has installed small plastic containment systems
that save money on pesticide costs and reduce worker
exposure to the pesticides. But most plantations do not
have this system, according to Chiquita statements issued
through its attorneys to the Enquirer.
13. Boxes of banana bunches, freshly applied with
pesticides, are put on large skids for shipment. On all
the plantations visited by the Enquirer, most workers
viewed by reporters did not wear gloves when handling the
pesticide-covered bananas.
14. Trucks or trains are brought to the plant and
loaded with the skids. The bananas are taken to port,
where the large refrigerated containers are lifted onto
ships. The ships then sail to various destinations,
usually in North America or Europe. About ten days to two
weeks after being harvested, the bananas are on display
and for sale at local groceries.
Pesticides in the banana ecosystem
The ecosytem of a banana plantation is extremely wet
and hot. The soil is very loose, helping the banana
plants grow but also making it easy for pesticides to
spread throughout the system.
It often rains in these areas, flushing pesticides
into the ground and water table. The banana industry's
answer to this dissipation has been to apply pesticides
frequently.
Ways pesticides get into the environment:
Air: Airplanes drop toxic chemicals
regularly from the air. Pesticides fall on the plants,
but also on workers, the ground and irrigation canals and
streams.
Ground: Workers apply pesticides to
the ground around the plants. These chemicals seep into
the ground with every rainfall.
Water: Pesticides also get into water
that is used to wash bananas in the packing plants. That
water then flows back into the irrigation canals.
Bags: Plastic bags with the
insecticide chlorpyrifos cover all the banana bunches from
their inception. The chemical leaks off the bags in rain
storms and flows into the ground and water.
Black Sigatoka is a banana
plant disease that plagues most areas where Chiquita
bananas are produced. The airborne fungus eats away at
the plant leaves, turning them black. The disease shrinks
the size of the frui and makes it ripen too quickly to be
shipped to market. Eventually, the disease kills the
plant. Some researchers are now trying to find a Sigatoka
resistant banana that will still appeal to consumers, but
nothing has been discovered thus far. To date, the
industry's reaction to the problem has been to increase
aerial spraying of powerful pesticides.
BUY ORGANIC!
Good For You, good For the Planet.
Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:17 am
Sponsor
Mystica
Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Posts: 226 Location: Australia
Re: Bananas
madthumbs wrote:
So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrates, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around. So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, "A banana a day keeps the doctor away!"
Footnote:
BUY ORGANIC!
Good For You, good For the Planet.
All of this is very true, although some people with heart burn or constipation may experience the opposite effect, but that is fairly rare, like people who experience allergic reactions to strawberries etc.
Another use for banana peel is to tape the banana peel (inside against the skin) to a plantar wart, cover it (plastic wrap under a bandage is good) and leave it for as long as possible, replace if necessary, and you'll find the plantar wart will disappear. It works on large and persisant plantars and much better than normal medical treatments.
Also don't ignore the humble apple, eating one a day does keep the doctor away but only if you eat the seeds/pips, because they contain Vit. B17 ie laetrile, they aid the digestive system, insomnia, stimulates the appetite, and helps to prevent cancer. (never eat extra pips, only the pips from the apples you consume per day, as the flesh counteracts the cyanide in the pips. It's impossible, to consume too many pips if you eat the whole fruit ie you just couldn't eat that many.
Mon Jan 22, 2007 8:14 am
madthumbs
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8187 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
I should have commented; I sometimes get mild heartburn from bananas if I've been eating improperly prior to.
Amygdalin (aka B-17) is found in many seeds and grains except wheat. Raw apricot seeds are one of the best sources. You can find a chart of foods here: http://www.opposingdigits.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=83 Chew the seeds well!
Mon Jan 22, 2007 9:22 am
Sponsor
Mystica
Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Posts: 226 Location: Australia
madthumbs wrote:
I should have commented; I sometimes get mild heartburn from bananas if I've been eating improperly prior to.
Amygdalin (aka B-17) is found in many seeds and grains except wheat. Raw apricot seeds are one of the best sources. You can find a chart of foods here: http://www.opposingdigits.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=83 Chew the seeds well!
Yes I know, I have my own apricot tree for that reason. I read the book World without Cancer (the story of Vit B17) by G. Edward Griffin. it's how I started out studying politics because the second part of the book is about WW2 and the corporations and cartels.
Try watermelon for heartburn, it really works because it's the highest alkaline fruit, and pineapple is also very good. Look up Ph balancing for good health, and follow an Alkaline diet.
I used the knowledge I got from the above book to research all cancer cures to treat my own cancer, I got the all clear a year ago.
I am a herbalist, and I've studied Ayurvedic medicine.
And the 4 vedas helped me through my spiritual journey.
Namaste
Mon Jan 22, 2007 11:27 am
madthumbs
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8187 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
