I know someone that used to eat bananas with coffee almost every morning!

I think you’d agree a coffee in the morning is amazing.

And bananas are so sweet, easy to eat, and fill you up. But, I wondered how healthy it is, and if it is optimum for my energy levels throughout the day.  Sounds like a weird combo, right ?

So, I did some research on this question and this is what I came up with…

Below, I explain the data behind the studies, so that you can decide if it’s a long term health habit you should keep or get into.

Plus detailed information about how good or bad it is for you to eat bananas with a cup of coffee for breakfast.

Is Eating Bananas With a Cup of Coffee Good for You?

Eating bananas and coffee at the same time, doesn’t cause any adverse health effects.

Eating many bananas can be good for you, but drinking a lot of coffee depletes your adrenal glands.

So, as long as you’re not drinking too many cups of coffee in a day it’s a good combination.

Many people find coffee addictive.

It naturally makes you feel really happy, and increases your focus and energy.

Bananas on the other hand according to Mass.gov calm you down and relieve stress.

Therefore, technically they should even each other out. But, does that actually happen?

There has to date been no scientific studies into the effects of eating bananas with a cup of coffee.

So, I would say it depends on how it makes your body feel after you do it. For me, I found I felt great, and had a good amount of energy throughout the morning.

However, I did develop a bit of a coffee habit.

Coffee is a naturally addictive substance.

A thorough scientific review of studies that tried to determine whether coffee is addictive or not clearly showed that:

• People who drink it, but want to cut down are, unable to do so
• They continue to drink it even though it causes negative effects
• They experience withdrawal symptoms when they stop drinking coffee

To be a bit cheeky – the different sized coffee cups you see at cafes labelled small, medium, or large should read ‘not addicted’, ‘somewhat addicted’, and ‘addicted’.

Other studies have also shown that drinking coffee regularly causes your body to create a tolerance, so you need to drink more and more to get the same positive effects.

When you drink caffeine, though, it produces cortisol which is the chemical your body produces during the ‘fight or flight response’.

Similar to adrenaline, it gives you superhuman energy.

But, over time your body gets used to it, so it conserves your cortisol so that you don’t use it all up.

Which means you need to drink more and more coffee to get the same effect.

Which makes you want to drink more and more cups of coffee every day.

People who hardly ever drink coffee find that even a small cup is strong enough, and any more than that makes them jittery, and anxious.

However, coffee every once in a while is totally fine, especially for a special occasion like taking a test, or when you need to stay up really late to pick up someone from the airport.

When I used to drink coffee regularly I would find I would have one in the morning, one on my morning tea break, and 2 cups in the afternoon.

When I noticed it was a bit of a problem I replaced the 2 afternoon cups of coffee with a Chai herbal tea that goes well with cream, and enjoyed it just as much.

The negatives of eating coffee and bananas

So, coffee is the main negative part about eating coffee and bananas together.

As long as you don’t drink coffee more than about once a day you shouldn’t have any adverse health effects, such as draining too much cortisol from your adrenal glands, and wearing them out.

The issue is that coffee is addictive and you will have to discipline yourself to not drink more than that a day.

Overall though, there is nothing inherently bad about mixing bananas with coffee. And they don’t cause a chemical reaction that is bad for your health.

And experiment with different breakfasts to see which one makes you feel the best.

I personally like eating only fruit and herbal tea or water for breakfast.

I’m not personally able to handle the addictive aspects of coffee, and I tend to crash at around lunch time if I have coffee in the morning, when the caffeine wears off.

But, everyone’s body and hormone levels are different.

The foods that you can eat with bananas are any that taste good.

Every diet, and school of thought about nutrition will recommend something different.

But, in general all humans live to be about 75 years of age, if they eat a balanced diet.

And almost all nutritionists will agree that eating lots of different foods is ideal to maintaining long term health.

Eating bananas on an empty stomach is ideal. Fruit tends to be digested very quickly.

If you have a full stomach, the bananas will take a while to get through because it has to wait for other food to be digested first.

As fruit sits around it starts to break down. Fruits and vegetables contain the most nutrients when they are fresh.

Which means you absorb the most nutrients into your body from bananas when they are digested quickly.

So, eating bananas on an empty stomach is ideal.

When you keep bananas in the pantry they can go brown quite quickly though, especially in warm weather.

So, it’s sometimes more convenient to preserve them. One of the best ways to do that is by freezing them in the freezer.

I cover the best way to do that in this Do Bananas Turn Brown in the Freezer? article.

It explains how to freeze them so that they don’t go brown in the freezer – which is a common issue that happens when you don’t prepare them correctly.

 

The one drawback is that you can feel hungry again very quickly.

So, you generally want to have them as an in between meal, or combine them with foods that satisfy your appetite, such as coffee or peanut butter.

There have been no scientific studies which have shown that the impact on consuming a combination of bananas with coffee.

Bananas are good for you on their own, and coffee in moderation is also good for you.

When you drink coffee often it strains your adrenal glands which causes imbalances in the chemical in your body.

But, coffee is addictive, and most people find that they want to drink more and more of it throughout the day

There have also been studies which show that people who want to cut down on drinking coffee, find it hard to do so.

Which may be the only negative aspect to eating bananas with coffee.