this is almost getting too much.. im trying to stick with my fruitarian diet of monofruit diet, like 10 bananas in the morning, 10 oranges at lunch and 5 peaches for dinner or random stuff like that..

but now im reading that bananas are bad because of the sugar or something? and my mom's doctor (believe me not that i think this opinion is great just saying) says that bananas are a high glycemic fruit...

now i know man messed up fruits because of the hybridization thing, but is it really that bad.. isn't the sugar natural anyway?

i guess what im saying is we all need to do our own thing and not give feeddback until later because we are all negating each other's diets and saying every fruit is bad.

its like everytime i come on this forum something bad happens, i either go back to cooked food because im convinced, or i slip up and eat cooked food.

i WANT to be fruitarian and stay this way, but are the fruits damaging over time?

During the winter time I will eat 20-30 pounds of bananas a week. During the summer, I will eat under 10 pounds a week, as there are plenty of other fruits to eat that are local and in season.

Bananas are considered a low glycemic food when compared to foods like bread or pizza. They also have a realtively low glycemic load. You can compare the glycemic index and glycemic load of banana and other food here.

Good grief ...you sure like to worry don'tcha....listen.... if I listened to every fruitarian horror story or anti-fruitarian raw vegan then I'd still be getting sick on cooked food....I've learnt that to live a Fruitarian lifestyle your gonna be going against what everybody holds to be true!!!!....and your gonna get people trying to stop you from doing it....but if it's what's in your heart... quit driving yourself crazy and do it....this lifestyle ain't for the faint hearted so if you wanna go back to cooked food then that's cool go a head!....if you wanna live a fruitarian lifestyle then roll ya sleeves up and get on with it!

You've had all the advice you need to set you on your way....good luck..

F1

confuzed Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> this is almost getting too much.. im trying to
> stick with my fruitarian diet of monofruit diet,
> like 10 bananas in the morning, 10 oranges at
> lunch and 5 peaches for dinner or random stuff
> like that..
>
> but now im reading that bananas are bad because of
> the sugar or something? and my mom's doctor
> (believe me not that i think this opinion is great
> just saying) says that bananas are a high glycemic
> fruit...
>
> now i know man messed up fruits because of the
> hybridization thing, but is it really that bad..
> isn't the sugar natural anyway?
>
> i guess what im saying is we all need to do our
> own thing and not give feeddback until later
> because we are all negating each other's diets and
> saying every fruit is bad.
>
> its like everytime i come on this forum something
> bad happens, i either go back to cooked food
> because im convinced, or i slip up and eat cooked
> food.
>
> i WANT to be fruitarian and stay this way, but are
> the fruits damaging over time?


If you are eating 10 or more bananas, that in itself prove that bananas are not that nutritious. Ten of anything really nutritious will be too much.

djatchi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you are eating 10 or more bananas, that in
> itself prove that bananas are not that nutritious.
> Ten of anything really nutritious will be too
> much.

This is just not true. If you are an active person you will need more calories, therefore you will need to eat more.

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

djatchi, where do you get your proof from that bananas are not nurtitious? Brian eats a ton of bananas, and he is perfectly healthy, so I am just wondering how you can say that is the case for everyone??

And confuzed...do you see how it can be? You will get 2-3 people telling you that one thing is nutritious, and then you will get one person telling you it's wrong. You just have to go by what works for you. Everyone is different!

Bryan is problably doing well not because of bananas but in spite of them because he may be doing other things right.
Why would someone eat 10 bananas when there are many other nutritious fruit out there: avacado, pears, coconut, papayas, and the list goes on.

djatchi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bryan is problably doing well not because of
> bananas but in spite of them because he may be
> doing other things right.
> Why would someone eat 10 bananas when there are
> many other nutritious fruit out there: avacado,
> pears, coconut, papayas, and the list goes on.

Maybe that's all that is available to the person, or all a person could afford.

I personally went off bananas because they make me feel dizzy. I stayed away from them for a month turning into mostly fruitarian, and just the other day I decided to try them again, well, I got dizzy and felt sick. So they don't work for me. ON the OTHER HAND, others do great on bananas. If you feel good eating bananas or anything else for that matter, eat them then!!! Listen to your body. If you feel good, eat them. If you feel bad, don't eat them. I hope you figure things out for what works for you.

djatchi Wrote:
> If you are eating 10 or more bananas, that in
> itself prove that bananas are not that nutritious.
> Ten of anything really nutritious will be too
> much.

So you don't eat anything that you would eat 10 of, because they must not have anything really nutritious in them? grapes? blue berries? Hmmm. How did you come up with the number 10 as your limit?

Personally I don't find I need to 10 bananas a day (more like one or two). But regardless, I can't find anything wrong with eating as many bananas as you want.

Also, there is another reason for eating bananas besides nutrition. That is Energy! Maybe you don't work out that much, or maybe you live in climate that is mild all year round, but for other people bananas are a great source of energy for working out and keeping warm during cold seasons.

Ian.

The energy is coming from the pancrea and the body trying very hard to get rid of the excess sugar that is floading the system. It is not long term. And because the enery is not long term, they need more bananas

I live on sprouts and indoor greens (sunflower, buckwheat, broccoli) and have a lot of energy, I do not need mushi and sugarly bananas to get it. If I need fruit, there are plenty none sugarly fruits out there. Bananas are cheap so are many other things, bread is cheap but not good for our health.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2006 09:09PM by djatchi.

I don't do great on bananas, I'm more a watery fruit kind right now (melon, watermelon, oranges...). But my wife does great on bananas, no problem for her.
And tell the guys she passes with her bike on long rides that they are not nutritious...
If her pancrea was working so hard to try to get rid of the excess sugar, she wouldn't have the energy to kick ass on her bike. That's what I think.
Just see what works for you, and don't force yourself in others believes.
Wanting everybody to eat the same thing as we do is a proof of non confidence in the diet. You need to convince others to convince yourself in my opinion. It's like cookedfooders who want to convince rawfoodists to go back to cooked stuff. They need someone to reassure them they are doing the right thing, because they know junk food is bad.
Once you know you are doing the right thing, you know it's for you, and maybe not others, because your trials teach you that. And you know you have an answer for now, but maybe not for ever, and next month you'll change maybe, or maybe not.
Just another opinion, not meant to confuze more ;-)
SGC

djatchi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I live on sprouts and indoor greens (sunflower,
> buckwheat, broccoli) and have a lot of energy, I
> do not need mushi and sugarly bananas to get it.
> If I need fruit, there are plenty none sugarly
> fruits out there. Bananas are cheap so are many
> other things, bread is cheap but not good for our
> health.

Just out of interest Djatchi, what are your daily activity levels, do you work in a office job or an active job, do you do any exercise, etc?

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

All of the cells in the human body are fueled by sugar. When one eats fat or protein as the predominate source of calories, these nutrients get converted into glucose by the body. While this is OK for emergencies, done every day this will result in problems.

The need for protein is small - perhaps as low as 4% of the calories consumed. The need for fat, including essential fatty acids, is also low, perhaps as low as 3% to 5% of the calories consumed. This means the rest of the calories, as much as 90%, can come from carbohydrates.

There are 2 forms of carbohydrates: complex and simple. Complex carbohydrates are hard to digest raw, and tend to taste and digest better cooked. So for raw foodist, this leaves the simple carbs found in fresh fruit.

So saying that bananas have excess sugar is unfounded. It may be for individuals who are still transitioning from the cooked diet, and their digestive systems are more oriented to digesting fats, will have difficulty initially with bananas or sweet fruit. But over time, as the digestive organs heal, this will not be a problem. At least this was my experience.

For me, bananas are not sweet enough. I prefer to eat sweeter and juicier fruits, like watermelons or mangos or figs. However, bananas are cheap, and they work well when the weather is cold because the juicier fruit make me too cold during this season.

sugar is energy. greens and sprouts are nutritious, but they certainly do not give enough expendable energy for most people!

i'm a watery fruit fan, like someone else, the cleaner the sugar, the more i love it. i love dates, otherwise known as the raw candy, and pears when they are falling off the stem.

one of the things here is that everyone's body functions a little differently. some people eat sprouted grains, whereas i cannot eat even one piece of sprouted wheat without being sick for three days. i've been mostly raw (75-100%) for over two years now. i have strong teeth, though i must use soft-toothbrushes for my gums, with only 2 cavities that i had before i became raw. i eat whatever feels right. sometimes i eat more cooked food than usual, meaning a large meal at night, and i always feel like crap for days afterwards. so i don't do it often.. i usually do it to keep company with my husband when he wants to have a special meal. when he isn't eating with me, i'm 100% raw.

your mono-diet might work for you, or you may become allergic to some of the fruits. variety is not bad. bananas and apples and oranges are sugary, but if that doesn't wreak havoc on your energy levels, then enjoy!

personally, i also get a bit bored day after day of the same fruit. i vary the mono eating by day.

today-
1 cantelope for breakfast
4 apples w/ 1/4 cup raisins and cinnamon for snack
3 tomatoes with olive oil and cayenne for lunch
4 tomatoes (i wanted tomatoes today) with basil and olive oil and some raw dairy(not that i'm advocating raw dairy, that is my personal choice for this time in my life and is related to breastfeeding)cheese for dinner.

and i feel wonderful, but have to drink water b/c of the salt in the foods.

make sense?

and yeah, what bryan said. i think we were posting at the same time.

another thing, confuzed, is take it easy. this isn't a huge ordeal that has to be decided now and ultimately forever. just sit back, breathe deeply, and take a big bite of that banana. is it good? good. chew thoroughly and swallow. now how do you feel? want another bite? good. take one!

live life like this. taking breaths. enjoying the taste and texture. knowing you will feel fine in five minutes, five hours, five days. don't put stuff in your body that will feel bad in five minutes, five hours, five days.

what's that great cover from "hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy"?

DON'T PANIC

I like bananas. I literally grow tons and tons of them. I eat them a lot because they're free. Bananas are one of the few SWEET fruits in the whole world that can be harvested all year (papayas, and maybe jackfruits and mamey sapotes can also be harvested all year, but there's not much else). That being the case, bananas are a staple food for many who live in tropical environment.

Humans, birds, bugs, pigs, monkeys, rodents and mongooses, all love to eat bananas. I usually eat a few bananas (3-5, they're kind of small) and an orange before I run or work out, and they can keep me going strong for hours. Then I eat them during the day for snacks in addition to whatever else I eat, so I probably get in about 10 a day pretty easily. Besides the sugar, there's lots of nutrition in a banana (check nutritiondata.com).

It seems to me that if there's any kind of rhyme or reason to how things are set up here on this planet (inluding the force of evolution), one might expect that there's a reason why a banana tastes so good and can be eaten year round. Maybe the reason is that bananas are good for at least SOME of us to eat.

On the other hand, someone else might find bananas to be too rich for them. If that's so, then perhaps they should not eat many bananas. I think anyone who has found something to be true for themselves (including me) should probably be somewhat restrained in suggesting that it MUST be true for everyone else.

One piece of advice I'd give you is that if you find you are not satisfied eating only fruit all the time, and even if you find that a fruit-ONLY diet has some negative effects for you, that may NOT NECESSARILY mean that fruit is BAD for you. And, on the other hand, it may NOT NECESSARILY mean that you are experiencing detox symptoms. It MAY mean that the fruit alone is not providing enough of all the nutrients you need - especially during winter when the variety of fruit is limited. You might need to add other raw foods like veggies, nuts, and sprouted stuff.

What it really does comes down to is that you should keep an open mind and find out for yourself what works best for you.

Don't be hesitant to EMPOWER YOURSELF. Make your own decisions, and then take responsibility for those decisions with all the consequences. You are the pioneer for your own body. Others can only show you the possibilities.

Best wishes, -Ally

PS: I really like Mama Cass's last post!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2006 10:43PM by Ally.

I feel better without bananas personally. Better to consume fruit with seeds in it. They're a cheap fix if you're broke and gotta eat but as a staple I think they're a poor choice.

I would aviod worrying too much about these things. I would also aviod taking anyone's opinion as gospel. Get as much information as possible and see what is true for you. Don't be afraid to admit something to yourself or seek reassurance in other people's opinions. Remember, popular opinion doesn't change reality.

Funky Rob Wrote:
> Just out of interest Djatchi, what are your daily
> activity levels, do you work in a office job or an
> active job, do you do any exercise, etc?
>
> Rob
I am very serious about my health as most people on this forum but I find it unresponsible to tell new comers in this forum that living in the richest country in the world what we can come up as source of calories and nutrients are bananas.
I work on wall street but I am very active and perform 30 mns of yoga every morning starting with the 5 tibetans and another 30 mns at night. I jog every day.

Bananas are for rawfooders who are just too lazy to come up with a real meal, it is an easy fix for calories or false sense of calories. You can find plenty of calories in sprouted quinoa or lentils.
To me the label of being fruitarian or something else is totally irrevelant, the main goal should be to strive to be healthy now and to remain healthy for the rest of our lives.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2006 01:09AM by djatchi.

Me loves bananas. Mmmmm. Bananas good...

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

LOL, rawgosia, you are funny.

Yeah rawgosia, mmm bananas good!

Bananas have always been a staple food for the Polynesians (along with coconuts, taro, and fish), and I'm very pleased to say they're a staple food for me.

So djatchi, you think bananas are just for people who are too lazy to fix a "real meal"? LOL! Not everybody gets their bananas off those display trees at the store ya know. SOME people (including me) actually have to GROW them before they eat them.

In case you think it takes more work to buy some stuff at the store and chop it or sprout it (or whatever) to make your "real meal", here's how to get bananas if you actually happen to grow them yourself:

First you get your Oh-Oh bar. It's a solid steel bar (no handle) maybe 8 - 10 feet long, with a point. You pound the point with everything you've got (up and down, up and down) into the ground all around the banana keiki (sucker) inside the big banana mat. Then you finally get it out and (oops) you broke off too much root so you have to try another one. You finally get one out with plenty of root, and you dig a big deep hole (after you maybe pull out a bunch of huge rocks to make the hole), and you plant your keiki.

Then you start to feed them. They have to be fed really often, and fed a lot - heavy loads of a lot - with really good organic stuff, because they are very heavy feeders.

After a few months usually, if you've fed your keikis really well, the keiki makes a mat and grows more bananas, but you have to thin them out or you won't get good bananas. No, you can't pull them or cut them out, you have to get your heaviest duty pickaxe and throw that pickaxe all around each extra sucker to get it out. Oops, you didn't get enough of some of them out, so they grow back again (ususally in about a week), and you have to do it over again - and now there's more to thin already! And to get enough good healthy bananas for you and your family to eat a few everyday all year round, you probably need to plant and care for about 50 mats, each producing about 5 plants at different stages, and each producing about 5 to 15 extra plants that need to be pickaxed out every 2 or 3 months or so.

Maybe after a year or so, you'll get your first banana stalk, but since your mat is not yet well developed, you usually won't have really good bananas. When you finally do get good stalks, you have to go find your most muscular friend (in my case my husband) to chop the banana plant with a machete and then you and your friend have to try to catch this huge humungous thing, full of water, that sometimes falls on you (so you don't break all the bananas), and you try not to get pounded into the ground.

Lazy? I guess it's all relative to how you get your food. Maybe "real meals" are just for people who are too lazy to grow bananas. (This is all in fun, hey). What for heaven's sake is a "real meal" anyway? If you eat anything besides whatever that is, does that mean you are lazy? A stalk of celery?

Once upon a time, the Hawaiians considered it kapu (taboo) for any woman to eat a banana. Thank goodness we're much more tolerant now. Wouldn't you agree?

Best wishes, -Ally



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2006 06:19AM by Ally.

Ally you are not teaching me anything new, I too grew up in similar and even wilder environment. Bananas, plantains and rice were what my parents grew for a living. They did not need chemicals or fertiliser.
When I go home on vacation I do enjoy eating them in their natural state. But the bananas we see here are too sweet too weak and unhealthy to eat and to say that people who are advocating a higher living standard have to eat 10 bananas in one sitting is unhealthy.
If those bananas were that healthy and nutritious you would not need to eat 10 or more at one meal, one or two should be enough.
One problem rawfoodists have is that it take effort to come up with a good meal and on a standard american diet you can easily buy a meal at a macdonald or any other restaurant. People coming from that SAD into raw food are not used to taking time to prepare their food and for them it is easy to grab a banana for calories.

Be kind to your body and take time to prepare the food to feed it, get yourself a food processor and high speed blender and explore the wonderful world of home grown green and sprouting. Do not rely on bananas because they are cheap, nothing compare to eating food that was growing just few minutes ago not even 20 bananas that were harvested weeks ago.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2006 10:23AM by djatchi.

djatchi...is it really necessary to call those of us who eat bananas "lazy"? Ugh...I hate when people post messages with personal attacks like that.

I agree....

The only reason I would eat serious amounts of sprouts is if I was trying to beat cancer or heal some illness. I think Ann Wigmore recomended 6 cups of sprouts a day in her diet.

It is hard to find anything more nutritious and living than sprouts and indoor greens [www.sproutman.com]
The reason I eat them is to keep me healthy and full of energy.

djatchi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It is hard to find anything more nutritious and
> living than sprouts and indoor greens

Which shows you are completly missing the point. It is hard to find anything with more calories (therefore energy) per gram than bananas. If you are leading a fairly sedate lifestyle then sprouts might be all you need, but if you are growing bananas like Ally or walking 10 miles in a day then you need something with higher calories.

From Nutrition Data 100g of sprouted mung beans gives you 30 calories, 100g of Banana gives you 346 calories. There is no way I could eat enough sprouts to give me enough energy to do the amount of physical activity I do.

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

djatchi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Ten of anything really nutritious will be too
> much.

So, when you are eating all of your sprouts, do you eat more than 10 sprouts in one day??? I would imagine so.

Yogamama Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> djatchi Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > Ten of anything really nutritious will be too
> > much.
>
> So, when you are eating all of your sprouts, do
> you eat more than 10 sprouts in one day??? I
> would imagine so.

We are talking about proportion something of the size of a banana.

Funky Rob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> djatchi Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > It is hard to find anything more nutritious and
> > living than sprouts and indoor greens
>
> Which shows you are completly missing the point.
> It is hard to find anything with more calories
> (therefore energy) per gram than bananas. If you
> are leading a fairly sedate lifestyle then sprouts
> might be all you need, but if you are growing
> bananas like Ally or walking 10 miles in a day
> then you need something with higher calories.
>
> From Nutrition Data 100g of sprouted mung beans
> gives you 30 calories, 100g of Banana gives you
> 346 calories. There is no way I could eat enough
> sprouts to give me enough energy to do the amount
> of physical activity I do.
>
> Rob


HAVE YOU TRIED SPROUTED QUINOA?
I do not go to nutrition data calories from a banana that has been sitting for weeks is not the same as calories from a living sprout. Your body will tell you the difference not Nutrition Data.
The law of entropy say we cannot create order we have to get it from something, a sitting banana is in the process of loosing order, a sprout has order.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2006 06:19PM by djatchi.