Banana occupies a complex and largely cautionary role in Aajonus Vonderplanitz's framework. It is not a freely recommended food. It is a high-starch, high-sugar fruit that carries real biochemical hazards when eaten ripe, and it is simultaneously one of the few foods Aajonus identified as having specific, documented therapeutic applications, particularly for pain relief and lactic acid clearance, when used in precisely the right form, at the right ripeness, combined with specific fats.

The banana is the central exhibit in Aajonus's case against ripe fruit and high-sugar carbohydrates as a category. He returned to it repeatedly across dozens of seminars and workshops, always using it to illustrate what concentrated sugar does to primate neurological function, behavior, and psychology. It is the food most associated with his warning that "going bananas" is not a mere expression, it is a physiological reality he documented through direct observation and through his personal friendship with filmmaker John Goodall, whose Academy Award-winning documentary The Beginning captured the phenomenon on film.

At the same time, banana, in its unripe form and in specific fat-buffered combinations, appears in Aajonus's therapeutic protocols for pain, muscle soreness, lactic acid accumulation, flu recovery, and as a digestive aid in cases of diarrhea. A very small amount of green banana also appears as an optional addition to milkshakes for specific populations.

The overarching principle governing banana in Aajonus's framework is this: ripeness determines toxicity. Unripe banana equals high enzymes, low sugar, and therapeutic potential. Ripe banana equals high sugar, neurological disruption, behavioral instability, and danger.

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The central biochemical problem with ripe banana, according to Aajonus, is its sugar content. He described the transformation from unripe to ripe fruit as follows: unripe fruit is approximately 90% enzymes with very little sugar. Once a fruit has ripened, it is approximately 90% sugar. This is the fundamental dividing line in all of his teaching about fruit, and banana is the primary example.

When ripe banana sugar enters the system, Aajonus described what happens: the sugars enter the bloodstream and damage and disrupt the entire neurological function. He stated this directly: "The sugars went into the system and damaged and disrupted the entire neurological function. The same thing happens to humans. Especially children."

He observed that what happens to gorillas who eat ripe bananas happens in analogous form to humans, particularly children, who consume high sugar. "You know what happens to children when they have sugar? They go nuts. So do some adults."

Aajonus explained that when the high sugar of ripe fruit enters the digestive tract, it ferments and becomes alcohol. He stated: "What happens to the sugar when it gets into the digestive tract? It ferments and becomes alcohol." He acknowledged that alcohol has certain useful properties, it is "a great substance to clean the tissues, to help break down solvents in the body, to make viruses where bacteria, fungus and parasites can't help us, to make virus solvents to dissolve dead cells and other matter." However, he also warned: "there can be neurological damage because of that cleansing, so always have some fat with that meal."

Beyond the sugar issue, Aajonus described banana specifically as a high-starch fruit. He noted: "some people have a very difficult time of digesting bananas because it's a high starch fruit. Sometimes it's very slow in digestion." This slow digestion, he said, "also causes constipation." However, he also noted it can be used therapeutically "in cases of diarrhea to slow down and stop diarrhea."

Aajonus noted that banana "has to pass through the liver once it's in conversion," making it a food that adds a burden to liver processing. For this reason, he was cautious recommending it for individuals with liver sensitivity. When advising about a child with potential irritability, he said: "the banana has to pass through the liver once it's in conversion so it's not a good one to give him."

On the positive side, Aajonus identified banana as allowing "a lot of potassium to soothe the burning effect" during illness. Specifically in the context of flu recovery, he described the banana's role: "The banana allows a lot of potassium to soothe the burning effect. And also a lot of lactic acid may build up and it helps relax any irritation."

Aajonus described from his own direct experience the combination of butter and banana as being highly effective for removing lactic acid buildup and preventing muscle soreness. He recounted a period of extremely heavy physical labor, hacking through thick vines with thorns, bleeding repeatedly, and described how the butter and banana combination allowed him to keep working with no muscle pain: "after I started eating the butter and the banana, I had no soreness. None." He said most people go through approximately 30 to 45 days of pain during heavy physical exertion as the body clears lactic acid, "and for me, that's a lot of effort," but the butter-banana combination bypassed that entirely.

He tested the same protocol with cream instead of butter, and found it inferior: "I've tried to do that, experimented with cream and banana the same way. Very difficult to digest. A lot of slowness in that, and it did not prevent the soreness from being removed, the lactic acids from being removed quickly." So the specific combination is butter with banana, not cream with banana.

Aajonus also identified banana as a component of a pain-relief formula. He stated: "if you're in pain, if you have butter and bananas together and you don't have honey it will work. Bananas, honey and butter still help reduce pain, any kind of pain except headaches." He directed readers to his book for the headache formulas and the specific way to use bananas in that context.

Aajonus described how frequently eating fresh raw coconut cream with unripe banana "gradually dissolves hardened fats." He listed unripe banana among the foods that, when eaten with plenty of raw fat, especially coconut cream, help relieve the lactic acid buildup that causes muscle soreness. The relevant statement: "Eating plenty of raw fat, especially coconut cream, with any of the following: unripe bananas, nonsteamed dates, unripe melons or unripe pineapple, helps to relieve the lactic acid build-up that causes muscle soreness."

He also noted that muscle spasms can occur as the body works to dissolve and remove hardened fat accumulations, and gave the example of angina pectoris. His guidance for spasms: "it is best to sit, eat some unheated honey and relax."

Aajonus warned that eating a lot of fruit, including banana, "is going to alkalinize your digestive tract so much that you're not going to be able to eat meat." He described this as happening "probably immediately" rather than over time, stating: "it will absolutely destroy your ability to eat meat. Over a period of time? Meaning? Over a period of time, then it's going to destroy my ability to process meat? Probably immediately."

Aajonus explained that banana is a complex food to digest, requiring "complex enzymes and white cells for proper digestion." During menstruation, the body draws so many enzymes and white cells into the bloodstream to facilitate the dumping of toxins through the uterus that "complex foods are more difficult to digest." He stated directly: "I rarely eat banana because of that problem." He was responding specifically to a woman who had developed indigestion and stomach pain from bananas during menstruation, where previously she could eat them without reaction.

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Aajonus was unequivocal that in nature, all primates, gorillas, apes, eat only green, unripe bananas. Never ripe. He observed this through John Goodall's documentary footage and described it repeatedly: "They always ate it green where there was hardly any fruit in it. I mean, hardly any sugar in it."

He described what green bananas are like to eat: "They're completely so green, there's alimony when you put them in your mouth." He used the word "alimony", by which he meant alum-like, astringent, mouth-puckering. He stated: "it makes the mouth pucker and dry." He also described them as "hard as hard can be," "almost impossible to eat," and said he personally had tried and found it "impossible." Gorillas eat them "peel and all," something Aajonus specifically said humans should not replicate: "I don't suggest you eat the peels like they do, because it's very alimony and almost impossible for humans to eat it, but gorillas can."

He described the appeal of green over ripe: "High in enzymes, low in sugar." Unripe banana is described as being approximately 90% enzymes, versus ripe banana which is approximately 90% sugar.

Ripe banana, yellow, spotted, or soft, is the dangerous form. The sugar content has converted from enzyme to sugar, and the neurological disruption potential is high. Aajonus stated that gorillas, encountering ripe bananas for the first time and eating them, went into fighting, killing, and psychological disruption within 20 to 45 minutes.

He described ripe banana specifically as causing: sugar highs, compulsive eating, inability to stop, possessiveness, aggression, loss of rationality, fighting, manic behavior, and killing, in primates. He mapped this directly to human behavior, especially children.

Aajonus described fermented, overripe bananas as the most dangerous form, associated with the most extreme behavioral disruption. He repeatedly described "killer monkeys" going on a 24- to 48-hour binge of fermented figs and overripe, fermented bananas before going on killing sprees: "They'll go on a binge for 24 hours and then they'll go out on a killing spree. Kill anything, mainly other monkeys, but anything that they find."

He connected this to the fermented banana producing alcohol at very high levels, he said the alcohol content is "so high you can smell it in the air for half a mile" in the area where killer monkeys are bingeing on fermented fruit.

Aajonus gave a specific practical warning: "refrigeration quickly advances ripe bananas to the rotting stage, causing intestinal fermentation when eaten." He did not recommend refrigerating ripe bananas. For most fruits, refrigeration preserves the unripe state with more enzymes and less sugar, but bananas are an exception, refrigeration damages them.

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Aajonus repeatedly described how gorillas ate green bananas as the template for understanding proper banana consumption: whole, unpeeled, hard green, with full astringency. He noted: "They eat the peel. They eat everything about the banana. Everything they eat on that banana. No peeling. And it's as hard as hard can be."

He contrasted this to the human capacity: "I've tried to eat them. I can't. It's impossible." So for humans, the practical application of eating green banana would be peeled, though even then the astringency and hardness make it extremely challenging.

For human consumption, banana appears primarily in blended preparations, smoothies and milkshakes, rather than eaten whole and raw on its own. The recipe in The Recipe for Living Without Disease blends banana with eggs, milk, cream, nutmeg, and honey. Aajonus also described the banana-butter-honey pain formula as being mashed or blended.

In the context of a child's milkshake, he gave the specific instruction: "be an inch and a half section of green banana, that's okay." This tiny quantity, an inch and a half section, was described as acceptable for a milkshake, along with the option to add a tablespoon of coconut cream for additional benefit in a healthy person.

He specified: "don't do it unless you're very healthy already" when discussing adding green banana and coconut cream together to a milkshake, suggesting this is not for fragile or newly transitioning individuals.

Aajonus mentioned observing cows at a dairy in the Philippines that "fed them lots of bananas, which I wasn't excited about." He accepted this milk because the cows also grazed on tall green grass and the bananas were given only at milking time, but his comment "which I wasn't excited about" indicates he would have preferred the cows not be fed bananas.

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Aajonus was consistent across all discussions of fruit, including banana, that fat must always accompany it. The function of fat is to slow the sugar's entry into the bloodstream and to buffer the neurological and tissue-damaging effects of the sugar and the alcohol it ferments into.

He stated: "always have some fat with that meal, either one to two tablespoons of cream or two teaspoons of butter with that fruit meal."

The butter-banana combination receives the most specific and enthusiastic endorsement. Aajonus described it from personal experience: "after I started eating the butter and the banana, I had no soreness. None." He specified that cream did not work as well as butter for the purpose of lactic acid removal and pain prevention.

In the pain formula context: "if you're in pain, if you have butter and bananas together and you don't have honey it will work." The basic formula is butter and banana. The enhanced formula is bananas, honey, and butter.

Honey is added to the butter-banana pairing to form the full pain formula. "Bananas, honey and butter still help reduce pain any kind of pain except headaches."

In the context of feeding a sick child, Aajonus described: "I mash banana and mix it in [with the honey/butter mix]. It relaxes his muscles and is better at relieving pain."

Aajonus specifically paired unripe banana with coconut cream for the purpose of dissolving hardened fats: "Frequently eating fresh raw coconut cream with unripe banana gradually dissolves hardened fats." He listed this combination in the context of addressing hardened fat accumulations in the body.

He also described the broader formula: "Eating plenty of raw fat, especially coconut cream, with any of the following: unripe bananas, nonsteamed dates, unripe melons or unripe pineapple, helps to relieve the lactic acid build-up that causes muscle soreness."

In flu recovery protocols, Aajonus described blending eggs with banana: "You blend the eggs with banana, cream if you have it, honey, or just banana and egg or orange juice and egg." The banana's potassium and lactic acid-relaxing properties are specifically mentioned as supportive in this combination.

Aajonus warned that when fruit, including banana, is dissolving metal toxicity in the body, there must be fat present to "harness" those toxins. Without fat: "it will damage your system. It will start eating away your own tissue. And then you have ulcers and all kinds of problems." The fat options he described include raw cream, raw butter, and avocado.

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No topical applications of banana were identified in the source passages.

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The primary safety test Aajonus prescribed for banana in smoothies: "If it causes you sleepiness, it is very bad. If not, it is fine." This was applied to a dose of 1/3 to 1/2 a banana per day in smoothies.

For individuals adding green banana to a milkshake, the specific quantity described was: "an inch and a half section of green banana, that's okay." This is a very small amount, approximately one to two tablespoons of banana flesh at most.

Aajonus's general guidance: "fruit best eaten just once a day because of the high sugar content." Banana, as a high-sugar, high-starch fruit, falls within this one-time-per-day maximum for ripe form.

He stated: "if you want to eat more fruit eat it unripe like the apes." This would allow for somewhat more frequent consumption if in the green/unripe state, but even so, banana was not a food he encouraged eating in quantity.

For a person with some fat congestion and left-side debilitation but a functional pancreas, Aajonus advised: "Banana's not a great thing for you. It looks like... I don't crave them, but once in a while." When the person confirmed they only craved it occasionally, he said: "once in a while will be okay." This suggests that for most people who are not specifically using banana therapeutically, "once in a while" is the appropriate frequency.

In one exchange, Aajonus said: "if you're only having half a banana at a time and only two ounces of carriages with that, I think it will be okay", indicating that half a banana at a time, accompanied by cheese, is within an acceptable range for someone whose pancreas can handle it.

Aajonus specifically noted that high sugar effects children more dramatically than adults, stating directly: "You know what happens to children when they have sugar? They go nuts. So do some adults." For children with irritable dispositions, banana should be avoided unless green. Even green papaya was preferred over banana for children requiring a sweet food.

In discussing Pacific Island peoples who were extraordinarily healthy, Aajonus noted they ate "once a week, once every two weeks, they either ate a green banana or a green mango. So it was less than 1% of their... not even 1%, but half a percent of their diet was fruit." He presented this as an example of ideal fruit consumption proportion, the healthiest people he encountered ate fruit at roughly half a percent of their total diet.

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Ingredients (1 serving): - 2 to 3 raw eggs - 1/3 banana - 3 ounces raw milk - 1 ounce raw cream - 1 pinch freshly ground nutmeg - 1 tablespoon unheated honey

Method: Blend all ingredients together in an 8- or 12-ounce jar on medium speed for 10 seconds.

Warning note from the recipe: "Fruity milkshakes make some people more emotional, sensitive, irritable and/or sleepy. If you experience those symptoms, you would probably do better by drinking milkshakes [without fruit]."

Basic formula: Banana mashed with butter Enhanced formula: Banana + butter + unheated honey

No specific measurements given in the seminar context, but the reference describes mashing banana into the honey/butter mix. In the flu context, the formula was blended with 8 to 18 raw eggs, cream if available, and honey.

Ingredients: - Regular milkshake base - 1 inch and a half section of green banana - Optional: 1 tablespoon of coconut cream (only for very healthy individuals) - Optional: a little freshly grated nutmeg

No further blending instructions specified beyond the general milkshake preparation.

Basic version: Banana + raw eggs (8–18 eggs per day), blended Enhanced version: Banana + raw eggs + raw cream + unheated honey, blended Alternative: Orange juice + raw eggs, blended (banana optional)

In the context of refusing banana for a child with irritability, Aajonus instead described: "green papaya and just a touch of honey and eggs and butter or cream" as a custard. He said: "even when papaya is unripe it's still very sweet tasting but it's only the mineral content that makes it sweet and the enzyme content, it's not the high sugar." This recipe is the preferred alternative to banana custard for sensitive individuals.

The Recipe for Living Without Disease contains a Banana Cream Pie recipe. The specific ingredients and method were not reproduced in the source passages available, but the recipe title and page reference are documented.

Aajonus described smoothies that include banana as "fruity milkshakes" and distinguished them from plain milkshakes (without fruit). He noted that fruity milkshakes containing banana or other fruit "make some people more emotional, sensitive, irritable and/or sleepy", and if a person experiences those symptoms, they should shift to plain milkshakes without fruit.

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No substantial coverage of banana-derived products (banana oil, dried banana, banana flour, etc.) appears in the source passages. Aajonus's references to banana are exclusively to the whole raw fruit, used unripe or ripe, blended or mashed, in combination with animal fats and honey.

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Aajonus returned to this story in nearly every workshop and seminar where banana was discussed. He identified the filmmaker as John Goodall, whom he described as a personal friend and the father of Jane Goodall. He stated he met John Goodall while both were working in adjacent editing rooms on major motion pictures in 1971–72. Aajonus described himself as an assistant editor on another film.

John Goodall's film The Beginning was, according to Aajonus, a full-length documentary that was nominated for and won an Academy Award, he cited different years across different talks, including 1970, 1971, and 1972. In the film, Goodall filmed animals giving birth all over the world. He lived with a tribe of gorillas and observed that they ate only green bananas, never ripe. He documented their peaceful, cooperative social behavior during this period.

Aajonus described Goodall showing him the gorilla footage directly, in the editing room. The key experiment that Goodall filmed: the research crew cut down a massive bunch of bananas, described variously as filling the entire back of a Jeep, stretching "from that wall to here," and comprising "about three big bushels", and followed the gorilla tribe for one to two weeks until the bananas ripened to yellow or yellow-with-brown-spots.

They then placed the ripe bananas in the gorillas' path or in the midst of the tribe, from a distance because the silverbacks were territorial and dangerous.

Aajonus told this story many times, with minor variations in specific details but a completely consistent core narrative:

• The gorillas were initially curious, having apparently never encountered or approached ripe bananas before, even though bananas grow in their environment
• The gorillas pulled bananas off the bunch and tried to bite them directly, causing them to squish out everywhere, they did not know how to handle the soft, ripe texture
• It took approximately 40 minutes (cited consistently across most tellings, with some variation to 20 or 45 minutes in individual accounts) for the gorillas to learn to peel the bananas
• In at least one telling, Aajonus stated that one human showed a gorilla how to peel, and the others copied: "Nope. Humans showed them. One learned and the others copied it"
• Within 20 to 40 minutes of eating the ripe bananas (the timing varies by account: some say 20 minutes after they started eating, some say 40 minutes after they first encountered the bananas), the gorillas began fighting
• There were "enough bananas to feed every one of that tribe for over 10 days", yet they fought over them obsessively and compulsively
• One adolescent or teenager was killed (identified in different tellings as a teenager or infant)
• One teenager or adolescent suffered a broken leg and/or broken arm
• The silverbacks were too large and powerful for the research crew to intervene and remove the bananas
• The tribe's calm period lasted anywhere from 10 days to almost two months to fully resolve across different tellings
• The tribe had been followed for five and a half months prior to the experiment and had never fought

Aajonus stated that the phrase "going bananas" derives directly from this documented phenomenon: "And that's where that expression comes from. Because the African knows it. Africans have seen this. The African, you know, humans go bananas because it will make them crazy, the high sugar content."

In another telling: "That's what that term comes from. Went bananas over that. It made them crazy."

Aajonus described the Maasai tribe as having a law against eating fruit, unripe or ripe, because of what it does emotionally. He stated: "fruit is illegal in the Maasai tribe. No one in the tribe can eat fruit. Unripe or ripe. It is against their law. Because it changes them." The Maasai are described as "the skinniest, tallest, most intelligent tribe in the world," as characterized by archaeologists who had contact with them.

He described a period beginning approximately 30–35 years before the seminar where outsiders including Shirley MacLaine brought the Maasai candy, cakes, and other sugar foods. "After about 12 years of that, they realized that that food was damaging their tribe. So, they went to the government and said, we don't want the white man within 20 miles." The Maasai's eventual response was to exclude all non-tribe members from their area.

Medicinally, the Maasai did permit green fruit in specific limited circumstances, though not fruit in general: "medicinally, they can use green fruit as long as it's green and doesn't have much sugar and is full of enzymes." Green papaya was used for digestion, and Aajonus described a period of approximately 15–18 years where they used papaya and coconut for specific problems introduced by contact with outsiders.

Aajonus referenced traditional Asian use of fruit, always green, always medicinal, never as a staple food: "In Asia fruit was only used medicinally and it was always green. Green green green papaya was used for digestion and back aches. Green mango was used to help neurological problems, memory problems." He observed that in Bangkok's streets, ripe mango had replaced green mango for the younger generation, and connected this shift to the emotional and health problems of younger Asians compared to traditional elders.

Aajonus described personal observation of monkeys on his property in Thailand: "I got a piece of property and the monkeys live and cultivate the bananas up on the mountainside. And they're jumping around. They're just crazy and so hyper, just the way humans are." He connected this hyperactivity directly to their fruit-eating, including bananas.

Aajonus repeatedly described what he called "killer monkeys", chimpanzees, who engage in a specific behavior: "They'll go on a binge for 24 hours and then they'll go out on a killing spree. Hitler was a vegetarian who loved sugar." He described the binge as consisting primarily of fermented figs and overripe, fermented bananas, with alcohol content so high it is detectable by smell half a mile away. After the 24-hour binge, the killer monkeys kill for 24 hours, targeting anything in their path: insects, other monkeys, gorillas, elephants, pigs, squirrels, any living creature.

He connected this to human violence: "Fruit can create a whole state of mind." He invoked Hitler as an example of a violent person who consumed extreme amounts of sugar: "Hitler was a vegetarian who loved sugar. He put two heaping tablespoons of sugar in each glass of wine. If he had a cake that had an icing..."

Aajonus described visiting a primitive Pacific Island tribe that lived on "a whole coconut a day" and "one to three pounds of fish a day." Their fruit consumption: "once a week, once every two weeks, they either ate a green banana or a green mango." This calculates to approximately half a percent of their diet being fruit. He presented this as a near-ideal model: "Think about that. Half a percent of their diet was fruit. They lived on those two foods." These people were, in his description, strong and big despite eating almost no fruit at all.

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