The latest diet "craze" to come through my inbox is a bit light on the crazy, for a change. It's called the Banana Diet or the Morning Banana Diet and it basically involves eating bananas. The diet took off in Japan in 2008, when a pharmacist from Osaka instituted the diet for her boyfriend who reportedly lost 17kg (about 37 pounds)! From there the diet, known in Japan as the Asa Banana Diet, became an internet sensation, circulating mostly by word of mouth on one of the country's most popular social networking sites called Mixi.
Realizing the potential boost to banana sales, Dole Fresh Fruit Company, a subsidiary of Dole Food Company Inc., announced its plans to launch a campaign to make North Americans aware of the hidden weight loss potential of bananas. It remains to be seen if banana sales will experience a boost on par with what they did in Japan, as the popularity of the banana diet there lead to reported banana shortages.
It's a fairly simple diet, as far as diets go - eat enough bananas in the morning to get you about 80 percent full, then eat a "normal" lunch and dinner. If you're still hungry after eating bananas, wait 30 minutes and then you can eat something else. In Japan they would normally eat rice balls but North American dieters have recommended oatmeal. There's a little more to it than this, which you can check out on the rules page, but this it the gist.
What do I think of the Morning Banana Diet? I think it's a good thing that a diet is focusing on whole food consumption instead of lowered calorie processed foods. Overall, I don't see anything wrong with eating bananas for breakfast as long as you're not reacting to them in some way (remember, not every food is right for every person; a fact that, to its credit, the Morning Banana site points out). Bananas are a healthy fruit, containing high levels of potassium as well as fibre, vitamin B6, vitamin C and manganese.
In a world where a new diet comes along 15 minutes after the previous one with an approach completely contradictory to the last, the Morning Banana Diet is deceptively simple. But with no real limits on what else you're eating aside from the bananas, the diet is likely not addressing the issues around why someone would be overweight in the first place. Switching out one processed low-nutrient meal for a healthy fruit, from Fruit Loops to bananas for example, may in fact lead to weight loss. But don't make the mistake of thinking this is all you need to do for a healthy and sound eating plan.
At its core, the Banana Diet is a weight loss diet, and makes no other claims. As a holistic nutritionist I look for a lot more than weight loss as a means for judging a healthy eating protocol. The holistic approach focuses on health, which will inevitably include weight loss if you're overweight, (or even weight gain if you're under weight - imagine that). After all, being infected with parasites, having undiagnosed celiac disease and straight up starvation will make you lose weight too, although I wouldn't recommend these as approaches to healthy eating. The Morning Banana website even states itself, "the Morning Banana Diet is to help you lose weight, not make you fit, unclog your arteries, or whiten your teeth". Or make you healthy, I would add.
That being said, I can see the Morning Banana Diet as one step you could take toward healthier eating, although I would definitely recommend some alterations. Having a whole food breakfast is a great idea, but eating only fruit is giving you a bit too much of a sugar hit and there's no complete protein. Protein is important in the morning. Why not incorporate that banana into a smoothie and add in some nuts and greens?
Bottom line - we're all different, so one size fits all diets are never going to work for everyone. I would say that eating only bananas for breakfast is going to cause some imbalances in the long term, but chances are it's a lot better than what the majority of North Americans are currently eating for breakfast. At the end of the day, weight loss should be a pleasant side effect from adopting a healthy lifestyle, not the payoff to temporary dieting. And, in my opinion, this one is better than the cookie diet.
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