Banana Health – 10 Reasons You Need To Eat Them

Bananas! Perhaps my favorite fruit! Bananas are a cheap, easy to eat, nutritious food. Packed with healthy calories a banana is one of the most healthy and inexpensive foods in the supermarket. For that reason primarily I eat 3-6 bananas daily. There are however other reasons to eat bananas for food instead of their cheap cost.

Sooth the stomach
Bananas help calm digestive issues. The fruit neutralizes stomach acids helping to cure hyperacidity. This also helps to avoid heartburn. Also, bananas coat the stomach easing pain from peptic ulcers. Personally, this is what first attracted me to the awesomeness of bananas when I was a teen. Due to drinking so much soda playing stressful sports my stomach was a knot of pain. Banana’s and milk soothed and calmed me when I did not know of any other method to do so.

Energy Boost
High in easily digestible sucrose, glucose and fructose, eating a single banana can bump up your energy levels in as little as ten minutes. Research shows two bananas can sustain a 90 minute workout. Therefore, a banana is a great pre-workout fuel source, after-workout re-filler, or a mid-day snack. Just one banana can help make you more alert and active in a pinch.

Boost Brain Power
You need some mental clarity and mental power? Not only do bananas boost your body’s energy levels but your mind as well (in truth body/mind one in the same). Thirty percent of your daily calories are used to fuel your brain. Drop a banana into your gut to pump up your head!

Depression
A study found that seasonal depressives felt better after eating bananas. Perhaps this is due to the tryptophan that naturally occurs in this awesome yellow fruit. Tryptophan is converted into serotonin by your body that relaxes you and improves your mood. Or perhaps this is simply caused from eating healthy sugars. Either way, be mellow with the yellow :)

Stress
Potassium is a vital mineral to our existence. Two foods contain high amounts of potassium. One is potatoes. Can you guess the other? Yes, bananas. Potassium is used to keep the heartbeat normal, send oxygen to the brain and regulate water levels. When we are stressed out our metabolic rate rises to cope (which is bad) and the stress reduces our potassium levels. This can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.

Insect Bites
People have found that rubbing banana peels on bug stings and bites reduced swelling and itchiness.

Warts
Reportedly, banana peels can even help remove warts from skin when left on over a period of time. Incredible!

Heck, you can even shine your shoes with banana peels and a dry cloth.

Lastly, people have found that bananas help with nicotine withdrawal.

Banana Nutrition
This tropical fruit is densely packed with wonderful healthy and natural sugars and is exactly what our body needs to live. Have you heard the saying “An apple a day keeps the doctor away?” Well, when compared to an apple a banana has five times the vitamin A and iron, four times the protein, three times the phosphorus, twice the carbohydrates, and twice the other assortment of vitamins and minerals. An apple is 80% water (good fruit for weight loss) while a banana is real food. Not only that, a banana is loaded with potassium. Pound per dollar, bananas (along with potatoes) are the best value for your buck at the supermarket. For these reason I call the banana the cheap super food.

Make sure you eat up your bananas! Rumor has it they may cease to exist in ten years. The banana tree we get our fruits from haven’t has sex in ten thousand years. Frozen in time banana trees are all clones. As a seedless clone they are unable to evolve defenses making them susceptible to being wiped out from new, killer fungi. This happened in the 1950’s with the big and sweet Gros Michel. Now we have a less sweet, smaller banana on our store selves. Fear of the obvious danger of this banana version become extinct too is the reason banana plantations use heavy amounts of pesticides to eradicate harmful fungi that would whip out a plantation or all banana plantations. Banana extinction is a serious issue. 400 million people depend on bananas. Regarding pesticide use on food – no worries. I don’t believe the chemicals can seep through the thick rind deep to the fruit inside. Pesticide use does result in nice blemish free rinds, however. Notice how non-organic bananas are all shiny and yellow? Personally, I buy non-organic bananas because of the thick protective rind.

Lastly, a banana shares fifty percent of it’s DNA with us. When you eat a banana you can reflect on the shared connection we have with all natural things. It is not a coincidence that we share so much genetic material with this wonderful fruit. It reveals our connection and shared heritage with All Things in our Universe. When you eat a banana, the energy used to roll up organic material and create it are the same forces used to create yourself. Reflect on that concept today when you eat bananas for health!

Enjoy your bananas!