JUNE 5 2011 Page 9ST

thesundaymail.com.au 9NEWS

Banana diet a$20,000 benderKelmeny Fraser

Yellow fever:Freelee Fitrawveganand Harley Johnsonwith their daily diet ofbananas.

EATING 11,000 bananas a year at a cost of $20,000 –could this be the world’s most expensive diet?

A Queensland couple have attracted thousands offollowers to their 30 Bananas A Day diet, despite thesky-high price of the fruit.

Before Queensland’s summer of wild weather forcedup prices, Harley Johnson and his partner, who goes bythe name Freelee Fitrawvegan, were spending just $40 aweek for bananas from organic wholesalers.

But they say they are now spending $600 a week tomaintain their banana habit.

On a typical day, Mr Johnson bumps hisintake up to 40 bananas, but boasts apersonal record of 72 large cavendishbananas in a single day. The couple averageabout 46kg of organic bananas a week at a cost of about$13 a kilo.

If the pair were to stick to the plan for a whole year atcurrent prices, they would have consumed almost2400kg of bananas at a total cost of more than $30,000.

‘‘It is outrageous but we are banana addicts,’’ said MrJohnson, a vegan for 10 years. ‘‘We eat similar amountsto monkeys and we have that sort of energy as well.

‘‘I have friends who live in million-dollar houses andthey say, ‘Harley we can’t afford to eat like that’.

Freelee said the diet also advocated eating a variety offoods, such as dates and greens. The pair regularly postblood test results online to prove to critics that theirpotassium levels were normal.

But leading Australian nutritionist Dr RosemaryStanton warned the high-fibre content of the diet wouldgive many people a bad case of diarrhoea.

‘‘I would be very concerned if pregnant women,children or anyone with diabetes or pre-diabetes werefollowing such a lack of balance,’’ she said.

Superbug on its wayExpert warns strain will spread through human contactKelmeny FraserConsumer affairs

A LEADING Queensland re-searcher has warned it is onlya matter of time before amutant strain of E coli that haskilled at least 19 people inEurope reaches Australia.

Professor Matthew Cooperis one of a team of Universityof Queensland academicssearching for new treatments

to combat superbugs able toresist antibiotics, including theE coli strain sparking panicacross Europe and the US.

‘‘Clearly the larger this out-break gets in Europe, the morelikely it is that someone willbring it to Australia,’’ ProfCooper said.

First detected in Germany,the latest strain has affected1600 people in 11 countriesacross Europe and the US,

including 470 who have devel-oped kidney failure.

The World Health Organis-ation has described the out-break as a new mutant strainwith characteristics more viru-lent than seen before.

Health officials warn thescale of the outbreak could becatastrophic, with the BritishHealth Protection Agencywarning last week that thestrain was at risk of spreading

from person to person.The European outbreak was

believed to be food borne, butresearchers hunting for thesource remain stumped.

Prof Cooper said the bac-teria, which originated inAfrica, had picked up deadlynew genes: the Shiga toxin,which can cause hemolyticuremic syndrome, and a viru-lence gene, allowing it to stickmore tightly to the stomach.

The strain can causeinternal bleeding, kidney fail-ure, diarrhoea, and fever.

Prof Cooper said it waslikely to be carried to Australiaby a person and spread humanto human.

‘‘As we use more antibioticsinappropriate in animals, thereare just more of these resistantgenes around.’’

He has called for a ban onantibiotics in livestock feed

and mandatory reporting byhospitals of superbug out-breaks.

President of the GermanNephrology Society ReinhardBrunkhorst said late last weekthe number of new infectionsappeared to be stabilising.

However, experts are alsoconcerned about two newgolden staph strains in Europe.

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