Time to Bite the Banana

I was 10 the day my older sisters came home with a new & sure-fire diet aimed at getting them closer to the then “Charlie’s Angels Ideal” under which all American women sojourned in their efforts to capture the attention of All-American men. 

It was a simple and easily followed plan surely developed by a guru whose years of nutritional education were so vast & extensive as to be intimidating to his peers.  Thus, motivated by his deep & abiding humility, this great scientist chose to put forth his paradigm-altering work anonymously.  And since reputable publishers (the only type with whom such a professional as himself would condescend to work) would require a comprehensive inventory of his inspiring educational & career background, which could so easily (what with corporate espionage at its zenith in the mid 70s) fall into the hands of a less reputable print manager, who might then sell it to some dubious news stand periodical leading to the aforementioned and undesirable peer intimidation, this great man of science chose to share his findings through the distribution model prized by first graders and politicians alike: “The Whisper Campaign.”

But I digress.

Having heard about this miracle diet my sisters came home heralding the good news & inviting all to participate.  It was a 3-day game changer.  Day 1: Eat nine eggs.  Day 2: Eat nine oranges.  Day 3: Eat nine bananas.  That’s it: nine of the appropriate food on the designated day, nothing more, nothing less to emerge victorious.  The promised result was a weight loss of epic proportions: up to 15 lbs in a mere three days!  Clearly I would be a fool NOT to try.  And so, in the shadow of my wizened older siblings of 17 and 19 years, I commenced upon my journey to Dietary Nirvana.  Three days later I stood staring down at a static scale, orange zest wedged beneath my nails, an eggy burp of defeat escaping my lips.  My expulsion of hydrogen sulfide may have caused the needle to tremble some, but to no avail.  I lost nothing.

In defense of my anonymous nutritional-genius benefactor, I could not choke down that ninth banana, which I believed to be my undoing.  The point?  I have gone some 30+ years now not eating bananas.  I continue to eat eggs and oranges, but bananas, which were on some shaky ground prior to the crash diet, lost what was left of their appeal. 

Though I can never forget the Banana Brouhaha of ’77, I have decided it is time to bury the hatchet (or perhaps more aptly, the machete) and embrace the many health benefits of the banana (http://thetaoofgoodhealth.com/6-awesome-health-benefits-of-bananas-9/  …it’s some other guy’s blog who sums them up nicely).  In retrospect, I think where I went wrong 35 years ago was three-fold: a) listening to the sage advice of teenagers, b) dieting as a 10 yr old, and c) eating bananas by the bunch.