Can people live indefinitely on nothing but bananas, water and air?
No.
That was the short answer.
The long answer is: Definately not.
Why me?
The longer answer is:
There is no perfect food. That is no perfect natural food, science may be able to devise a food product that gives you all you need but nature has not.
That is. Bananas have little if any protein. Protein is a necessity for the building and maintaining of muscle. It also has little fat. Fat is necessary for the fueling of the muscles and can be stored for later need. Sugar/carbohydrates can be used as fuel as well but sugar is burned up quickly and gives the “sugar high” followed by the “sugar low”, also sugar and carbohydrates cannot be stored. That is when you are not eating and the food has been digested what do you live off? The muscles need to be fueled even when you sleep. The answer is fat. Meat, OTOH, does have the protein and fat that you need but does not have much in the way of Carbs.
A balanced diet has protein, carbs, and fat. Too much of any one of these is a bad thing.
Choose a sensible nutrition plan that involves balanced meals and do not try these strange diets. Balanced, reasonable meals and excercise is the key to good health and fitness.
Jeffery
Or, just give it a shot. If you post in three weeks, we’ll know.
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine
As I thought.
My mom always said that bananas were the ‘perfect food’, and that you could live off them indefinitely, but I never quite believed that.
I also vaguely remember hearing that the skins were impervious to radioactive dusts (not the radioactivity itself, mind you; just the dust. The idea was that you could peel the banana and throw all that annoying fallout away with the skin.). I definitely never believed that.
Hmm. Maybe it was just the echoes of Cold War paranoia filtered through a suburban six-year-old mind…
Well, maybe, but the plants would be taking up the radiation from the soil. I thought i heard that potassium can combat the radiation (key word, HEARD 
Can any of you scientists clear it up, please?). But i wouldn’t eat fruit from contaminated soil.
I know that in Bikini (the atoll where the nuclear tests happened, not the suit :)), the coconut trees have enough radiation in them to make eating a lot of the coconuts dangerous (i hear the newly resettled residents are cautioned to limit their coconut intake).
Oh BTW, if any of you want to mail order bananas, i found a source, and can email anyone the link, if i am not allowed to post it here (some message boards are touchy on listing the URL’s to commercial sites, i noticed).
Oh I forgot to add. The site that sells bananas isnt selling the fruit, they are selling actual plants.
About a decade ago I figured out that a person could live off of bananas, eggs and milk. I can’t remember why i did that and what brought me to that conclusion, anyhoo.
Rice and Beans will give you a complete protein and carbs and gas.
There is a weight loss diet that is nothing but protein. The premise is that your body can make energy from protein. Converting protein to a usable energy takes calories and therefore burns calories and fat. If you consider this I highly recomend a doctor for the correct diet as it is easy to become malnoureshed if you try it yourself.
The MRP’s that bodybuilders use come close to be the most complete. They have all the macronutrients (complete protein, carbs, fiber and fat) and micronutrients (vitamins & minerals). One guy supposedly lived off of one brand for 6 months. Could have been 3 or 9 months don’t recall. Some even have nutrients for things like connective tissue that a multivitamin does not. They can be nasty though. Especially the cheap ones. They can make you constipated or gaseous. If anybody has tried to live off of it (I tried) can tell you that they will cause a gag reflex after a few days.
Actually, StrTrkr, carbs are stored just fine. Your body converts any excess into fat and packs it on. The main reason to eat fatty foods is to get the fat-soluble vitamins you need (A, D and E, IIRC, maybe K?).
Those high-protein diets can be dangerous, since your body doesn’t store excess protein. It ends up being broken down and eliminated by your kidneys. If they can’t keep up, the best you can expect is gout (uric acid crystals in your joints - hurts like hell, I hear from one who knows), and you are likely to get kidney stones, which can kill you.
There are a couple of things you can almost live on exclusively: potatoes, and good beer. Irish peasants ate mostly potatoes for quite a while, until the blight wiped out their main food. I also recall a possible UL about a guy in England who lived for several years on a few pints a day with an occasional ‘packet of crisps’ (more potatoes 
), until he ended up in hospital with malnutrition.
Your best bet for good nutrition is to go easy on fat, salt and sugar, push the fruits and vegetables, and eat a little of everything instead of too much of just one thing.
Bob the Random Expert
“If we don’t have the answer, we’ll make one up.”
A quick visit to the usda database shows that bananas, while not a perfect food, are a damn good one. They read like a multi vitamin label. I am not suprised that they are such a staple in polynesia.
www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl
USDA main search site. Great page.
www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/list_nut.pl
Specific dope on our yellow freinds
Sorry, second link seems to be broken. Just go to the first and type in “banana”
rjk wrote:
I have heard this but how is it possible? How can carbohydrates be turned into fat. I had assumed that what it really meant was the carbs would burn and if that was all you needed all the fat would get stored. But from what you say it is not.
So how do carbs turn into fat?
Jeffery
StrTrkr777: How can carbohydrates be turned into fat. I had assumed that what it really meant was the carbs would burn and if that was all you needed all the fat would get stored. But from what you say it is not.
From the OnHealth website: