Day 33 Bananobsession

photo credit mondopanno @ flickr

I remember thinking there was no way I could eat a banana everyday much less anything more than that on a continuous basis. At most, I ate 2 bananas a month. I'd read about other raw foodists eating 30 bananas a day. I love this site: 30bananasaday.com and Harley Johnstone is da bomb but there was no way I could conceive of anymore than 2 bananas a month. I remember when I first read Steve Pavlina's blog and didn't understand the whole 80/10/10 thing thinking that he was eating way too much fruit. I thought if I was to become a raw foodist I'd eat more vegetables.

WELL that's not the way it works and now while I don't eat 30 bananas a day, I'm absolutely obsessed with them. They are the most important thing I eat everyday. They are the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think about on my way to bed. Then of course all day long I'm thinking about bananas. When I'm really hungry it's the first thing I want. I average around 6 bananas a day, which is actually very light for most raw foodists but there's so much more to it than that...

Banana Management
One of the things you learn right away is that you need to maintain a steady supply of ripe bananas. Sounds simple enough but one snowstorm and the banana supply chain is broken. You find yourself either cut off from access due to the weather or find your store only has hard green bananas or worse - there are no bananas. "Yes, we have no bananas today" is NOT funny during these times. Pretty quickly you learn that PANIC is your friend and you start to worry about your banana supply on a regular basis. Everything from inclement weather to truckers on strike and world trade agreements stand in the way of you and your main food source: Bananas. I can't even begin to face the fact that the bananas we currently eat today are not expected to be available in 20 years. IT'S STRESSFUL!

Even with ideal weather, trucking and trade agreements there are days you walk in the market to a sea of only green bananas. HOW CAN THAT BE?! This results in visiting multiple stores to see if they have ever-ready fruit. This is a real step down for me because if they're not Whole Foods organic bananas they don't taste as good and now you're settling for second best on your most important food.

By then you're so tetched that regardless of the fact they're not the bananas you really desire and despite being successful at the next store, you'll still drive to others just to verify that there is still food available for you on the planet. While there, you'll go ahead and buy another bunch and then continue on, arriving home with 4-5 bunches of ready to eat right now bananas. Oops. Mostly, it works out. To date I've never been bananaless but it's been close. I can tell you though I've yet to waste a banana!

If you've survived the supply chain problem and can buy the bananas you like in various degrees of ripeness to keep you going, you still must address ripeness on a daily basis. This goes hand in hand with banana demand but basically you're always overseeing your lot for ripeness and guesstimating when the next batch will ripen and if you have enough in between all that to make it through. You contemplate how many you'll need over the foreseeable future and weigh that against the varying shades of bright green to yellow before you. Your job is to make a determination worthy of the psychic network in terms of just how yellow they will become in a given amount of time. Despite sucking at math, I find I'm fairly banana psychic but it's not fool proof.

Banana Obsession
You thought I just described banana obsession above? No, my friend. The obsession has to do with having a ripe banana or two within your grasp at all times. At any given time there is a ripe banana in my car console, my purse, my swim bag, next to my computer and so on and so forth. Of course they're not just traveling, I'm frequently eating them as well. I'm driving, I'm online writing, I'm helping with homework, you name it.

This morning I was faced with the reality of just three mint condition bananas remaining and a huge bunch of still super green bananas. OMG! What the heck happened? Those three bananas would be gone by mid-day and the other bunch was inedible. What were the banana stores like at Whole Foods and when can I fit a trip into Whole Foods? GAAAAAAAAA! I managed it after my run/swim but I was down to my last banana at the pool. I bought two big bunches and the other ones should be ready in a couple days. Whew.

Banana Complications
A friend of mine recently asked me if I'd go on a water rafting trip with him this summer. I admit my first visualization was the bananas in the raft. I'm serious. I was thinking how would I keep them in the raft and how would I keep them from getting bruised? The idea of the water rushing over them was appealing to me, no pun intended. All I could see was me and a big bunch of brightly colored bananas bobbing through the rapids. Not him, not him and me, just me and the bananas. Is that bad? He mentioned there was a base camp but holy cow - we'd be away from camp all day. I am seriously going to need to EAT during the day. He then mentioned how the ranch hands would be cooking up more food than anyone could eat at all the meals. Ahem. Cooking? I realized I'd have to pack in 3 days worth of bananas as well as the other fresh food I eat. Plunging into a cooked food camp out on the first night would be suicidal. I'd be as green as the unripe bananas on my counter hanging over the side of the raft the entire next day. Now this doesn't mean I can't travel or do things but it does bear some thought. I think I'll wait til I'm further along in the program to make any life altering decisions.

Bananas & Your Friends
Basically your friends (who aren't raw foodists or at least vegan) think you're insane. My daughter thinks I'm insane. But to your good friends they're a gift of the highest honor. I recently gave a very beautiful bunch of organic bananas from Whole Foods to Lori, my BFF, who launched her vegan lifestyle just yesterday. YAY Lori! And now I'm obsessing over her bananas, contemplating when those will be exactly ripe and when she'll need more...