Japan Goes Bananas

Did you know that Japan is suffering from a banana crisis, according to Time magazine. Read on, then:

Japanese consumers eager to try the latest fad diet to sweep the country, the Morning Banana Diet, are finding it difficult to buy the fruit that gives the diet its name. Invented by a pharmacist to help her husband, Hitoshi, to lose weight, the Morning Banana Diet took off when he discussed his weight loss of 37 pounds on www.mixi.jp, a Japanese social networking site. When a TV show profiled an opera singer who lost 15 pounds in 6 weeks on the diet, a banana shortage was born.
Life Corporation, which runs 201supermarkets throughout Japan, has seen a 70% - 80% increase in weekly sales and Dole Japan, a leading importer, has boosted imports by 25%; and still can't keep up with demand. Books about the diet have so far sold about 730,000 copies.

Source:
"Japan Goes Bananas for a New Diet," Time magazine, October 17, 2008.

Odd that!

DW