Bananas are a great fruit to eat. They come perfectly packaged for you to enjoy one of them. They can be eaten raw, cooked, over your cereal or inside of the bread, and still pack quite the nutritional punch. However, bananas can be a problem for your body. Eating them comes with increased risks to your heart and waistline, not to mention the fact that they can cause severe allergic reactions, and some medication recommends that you don’t eat bananas if you’re taking them. This a list of all the problems that this fruit can cause.
1. Not a Diet Food
As said before, bananas have a great amount of nutritional value, but that comes with a cost. They are higher in calories than a lot of other fruits are, with about 110 calories per serving (126 grams), and having fewer fibers than them, which won’t make feel full for long. They are also mid-level in the glycemic index, which means that it’s not recommended to eat them if you are diabetic. So, if you are on a diet, you may want different snacks or fruits to eat that are less caloric, like apples or grapefruit, which have way more fiber content than bananas and fewer calories as well.
There is a substance that some people are allergic to called tyramine, which can be naturally found in protein-rich foods, like blue cheese or parmesan. If you have an allergy to tyramine, it may be better to avoid eating bananas as well, since they are rich in this substance, especially the stringy fibers that is around them, and the banana peel as well. In some countries, these parts of the fruit are used in snacks or recipes, so, if you travel, be careful if the dessert that you ordered doesn’t have any of that on, or you might have some bad problems soon.
3. Too Much Potassium
Potassium is good for your body and your heart in moderation of course, and you probably know that bananas have quite a lot of it, so one of these fruits a day should be enough for you. But, if you eat too much of this fruit in a single day, you will have a lot of potassium on your body and will develop hyperkalemia. This condition can lead to irregular heartbeat, temporary paralysis, and muscle weakness. Of course, you would need to eat a lot of bananas to get this, but if you have any disease that leads to an elevated potassium level, or you are taking daily potassium supplements, it might be easier for you to have hyperkalemia, so be careful.
4. Not a Good Breakfast
There was a popular diet fad known as the morning banana diet, which recommended only eating a banana during breakfast with water, however, that made people feel sleepy, and after a while, the fad died down. Today, we know that banana shouldn’t be eaten during breakfast because of the effects of tryptophan, a substance that can slow down mental processes and reaction times. Which, along with all the magnesium on a banana that makes your muscles relax, is a great recipe for a nap. From this, we can see that bananas might not be the best fruit for breakfast, but instead, for an after-dinner snack right before bed, to help with your sleep. But don’t forget to brush your teeth afterward since these fruits are hard on them.
5. Bananas and Tooth Decay
Bananas can be good for your teeth. They have calcium and vitamin D, which makes for stronger bones and enamel, the substance that makes the crown of your teeth be durable and protecting it from degradation. However, if you let sugars and starch stay on them for a long time, the PH of your mouth changes and enamel may start to be eroded. Unfortunately, bananas have quite a bit of sugar to make this process happen, and while one of them can’t make that on their own, if you eat a lot of bananas that can lead to tooth decay. Like said before, if you eat a banana, brush your teeth after that to avoid the damage.
6. Nerve Damage
Bananas have quite a lot of vitamin B6, and if you eat a lot of bananas, that can cause some serious problems, specifically, it can cause the death of neurons. Why is that? Well, vitamin B6 at high doses have a very direct and toxic effect on a subset of neurons that carry information from your spinal cord to your brain, basically killing some of them, which might become a very serious problem in the future. But that can only happen if you consume 500 milligrams of it, which might be a bit unrealistic, considering that to achieve that you would have to consume a whole bunch of bananas.
Bananas can cause a lot of different allergic reactions to people. For example: If you have a ragweed allergy, it’s very probable that you would have an allergy to bananas as well. And if you can’t eat avocados, kiwi fruit, tomatoes, bell peppers or potatoes without an itchy mouth or wheezing? First, I feel sad for you. Second, you probably can’t eat bananas without having this allergic reaction as well. And if you have an allergy to natural latex? Probably will have a reaction to bananas because they contain some similar proteins. So, if you have a sensitivity to any of those things, it’s best to avoid eating this fruit as well, since there is a high chance that you might have an allergy to it too.
8. Bananas May Not be Safe for Babies
An allergic reaction is bad, and a bad allergic reaction might make someone have an anaphylactic shock, which is a potentially fatal condition that requires urgent and immediate care, and a reaction like that can be treated with epinephrine injection, intravenous fluids or positioning the person flat. Why are we talking about this? Well, because giving Bananas to your infant without caution can potentially cause this. So, if you do give them this fruit, go easy on it, and give it slowly to them so that their body can adapt and understand that a banana is a not a danger to the body.
9. Stomach Aches
Bananas can give some bad stomach aches, and there are reasons for that. If the banana you ate was unripe, your body will have to work much harder to digest it because the amount of starch on unripe bananas is high. But, if you had a stomach ache after eating a ripe banana, maybe you have an allergy, or maybe you have an infection or gastrointestinal disorder of some kind. Or it might be because you ate too much of it as well, which has been said before that it’s not recommended. In any way, you must talk to a doctor in the case that those stomach aches after eating a banana are something that hasn’t happened before.
10. Bananas Have Serious Drug Interactions
The FDA lists four different classes of drugs that you shouldn’t mix with bananas. The first and second ones are beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors that are constantly prescribed to heart patients. They cause a surge of potassium in your bloodstream, and by knowing that a banana is full of it you already know that this might not be a good idea because it can lead to hyperkalemia. The third one is Oxazolidine antibacterials, which when mixed with bananas can increase your blood pressure dangerously. And the fourth one is any kind of diuretic because they can also cause hyperkalemia.
11. Constipation and Gas
As said before, if you eat an unripe banana you are going to have a stomach ache because of the high amounts of starch that your body must try to process. And to do that it needs a lot of time and a lot more energy. But a ripe banana might be perfect to stop constipation that you feel. However, eating too many bananas, be it unripe or ripe will cause you to have a lot of gas in your body because of all the fibers that were consumed, and while your body needs them to work properly, it doesn’t need that much, so it’s best to keep it moderate.
12. Risk of Type 2 Diabetes
Bananas fit into the medium-level glycemic foods. And what that means is that it can cause slight spikes in your blood sugar levels. If you overconsume foods with a high glycemic index you will have the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, obesity or cardiovascular diseases. So, if you consume bananas along with that diet, it’s not going to do you any good, and it should be something that you should be careful, especially if it’s an overripe banana since it has a higher glycemic index than a ripe banana.
13. They Have a High Amount of Carbs
We already know that bananas are not good for diets, but this especially applies to low-carb diets, because a medium sized banana contains about 27 grams of carbs, which is much higher than a lot of other fruits like apples and oranges, which only contain 14 grams of carbs and 12 grams of carbs respectively. What that means is that if you are in a low-carb diet, you should avoid bananas, and instead go for some of these more adequate alternatives to go with your diet.
14. Bananas Are Not a Good Snack On Their Own
Bananas are some of the most delicious fruits that there is, especially a ripe one, but you should be careful with eating as a snack or by itself. Because bananas have a good amount of sugar and carbs, they can cause the slight spikes on your blood glycemic index that’s been said earlier, and not only that, because they don’t have a lot of fibers when they are ripe, they don’t make you feel full for a long period. It’s much better to pair them with something else when eating, especially some kind of healthy fat or protein to compensate for that.
15. In Conclusion
Banana can be a problematic food. Its high amounts of carbs and sugar can cause some problems, if bananas are eaten in excess, as can the huge amount of potassium that they possess, however, they are still quite healthy, being very nutrient-dense and good for you in moderation. And just like all things, sure, it has its bad sides, but if you are careful with it, there is not going to be a problem anytime soon. Unless you are allergic that is.