Hi to this forum

I've been wondering if a particular site is using mind-control or cult-like methods to attract members. 30bananasaday.com

I'm worried about this website because it's following is overly-committed to the website and the group, veering on the point of obsession and having it control their lives. The people who run the site advocate leaving friends who do not agree with the diet/lifestyle and taking an aggressive "tough love" approach to push this lifestyle onto anybody around them.

I see the diet/lifestyle as being very dangerous. Their main emphasis is on eating as much fruit as possible, anywhere between 2,500-8,000 calories from fruit a day. They urge all of their memebers to stay away from the lower scale of 2500 and eat more towards 4000+ calories. All other foods are strictly frowned upon, except for some leafy vegetables. They never use fact but rather use pseudoscience and the "truth" of what would make sense in nature (which by itself is flawed). If you do so much as tell somebody who's having trouble with the diet to eat less calories or eat more fat, you will be banned. This is censorship.


Here are their rules: [www.30bananasaday.com]

The two who run this site are Harley Johnstone (under the name "durianriders") and Freelea. Harley Johnstone used to be a meth addict. He now seems to somehow gather a following of 'fans' who praise him as their guru. He uses a very aggressive message to advocate his diet, oftentimes accusing people of having an eating disorder or being drug addicts to other food if they do not succeed on the diet. He changes the titles of the forum posts and blog posts from other members on his website and promptly deletes any thread or blog that goes against his message. He also blocks people who post comments on his videos about the health problems they got from this diet. The following of his marks a lot of these messages as spam or thumbs them down so they are hidden. Sometimes he blocks people just for having health problems and doubting the diet. He makes his money from a false disability claim and also from his youtube viewers, and people who buy his products (audio clips, diet coaching and books). It is obvious that he is benefiting from having a following.

Freelea is the poster girl for the diet, and uses sex to sell the diet as much as possible. You can see this on youtube on her channel, Freelea. Their main logic for the diet is: "Eat this way and you won't be fat, because we're not".

Just a random video of Durianrider:
[www.youtube.com]
And Freelea's youtube, where it is obvious how she uses sex to get people into this diet:
[www.youtube.com]


I have seen some really disturbing threads started on that site about people who are having moderate to severe health problems and symptoms after following the diet anywhere from a few days to a few years, a lot of them being very obviously caused by a huge excess of sugar (symptoms of diabetes and raised fasting glucose, hypoglycemic episodes, feeling extremely depressed and anxious, etc) or nutritional defiencies, but with all of the censorship the members fail to address the true seriousness of the situation and only tell these people to eat MORE fruit or that they feel that way because they're not telling the truth about what they're eating and that they are secretly being anorexic for not eating enough fruit.


I guess that is all you need to know. I'm not a cult-expert, and coming to this site I see there are lot more dangerous things than this website. But there is some talk about whether this is a mind-control/cult type thing in the health community, and I wanted somebody who actually knows what a cult is to reply and say whether or not this sounds like one. In my opinion this site is dangerous. Thanks and awaiting your opinions

There are many sects and cults who used FOOD control as a way to start controlling people.
Ching Hai uses Veganism. [forum.culteducation.com]
There have been cults that use only rice and no protein, as a way of weakening people's general health, and well-being and willpower.

This thing looks primarily as a way for the site owners to make money? Of course they are promising people to lose weight, and eat all the calories you want. Another impossible claim, that many sects use.

They clearly are being extremely manipulative and controlling on that website, and do ban any thinking they disagree with.

How does this group stack up with these warning signs?
[www.culteducation.com]

I'd say this is a natural outflow from the raw food movement as popularized by the likes of Viktoras Kulvinskas with his seminal New Age work, 'Life in the 21st Century'. Inevitably there will be diet fads that take on a cult-like aura.

Can you imagine a world where the only stuff anyone ate was fruity?

Dieting is one of the most easily scammed advertizing solutions going. It makes money. They appear in magazines every day.

Combine exercising or body-building with dieting and set up a few YouTube videos and a website and bingo you have a following. Doesn't mean it's a cult per se, though, even if they are controlling in the way they manipulate discussions. Just means they are behaving like proponents of a very particular diet and won't tolerate any other type of diet.

It's bogus nevertheless, and will be tied to other various New Age mumbo jumbo. So watch out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2012 06:13AM by Sandman.

The Eckankar sect/cult might also use 'raw food' as a hook to lure people in.

What seems to happen, is various sects watch out for popular movements, then use them as a fig leaf to attract people.
Raw food is currently quite a popular movement.
And "Fit For Life" used to promote a type of fruitarianism.

So these sects watch the trends, and pick something they think will work to attract new members, while concealing the real purpose of the sect.

So as far as the 30bananasaday.com people, someone who is familiar with them, should put them through the checklist above, to see if they match up.

Are people being exploited financially?
Are the bananas what its really all about, or is it a fig-leaf?

For example, Ching Hai uses Veganism as a figleaf.
And the cult Desteni does the opposite.

But if you are going to start a cult, FOOD CONTROL is a first step.

If you search Google for:

30bananasaday

you see their catchphrase.



30 Bananas a Day!
www.30bananasaday.com
"A community focused on living in line with Nature's design. 100% low fat raw vegans endeavoring to increase global peace!"



You see how they have jumped from raw veganism to "world peace" and "community".

So to figure out what they are doing takes some research.
Who is behind the group?
Do they follow a Guru?
Are they a front-group to a large sect/group/cult?
What persuasion techniques are they using?

In the Ching Hai thread, [forum.culteducation.com] you can see actual "mind-control" techniques paired with veganism using slaughterhouse videos and the shock that creates.

This thread asking the same question has had 9000 views.

[www.giveittomeraw.com]
Is "30 Bananas a Day" Web Site" a Mind Control Cult? Many Cults deny freedom of speech!

Posted by Reality Corrodes on August 15, 2011
Tags: 30 Bananas a day, 80/10/10, brain washing, cult, deactivating members, deleting comments, freedom of speech, mind control, propaganda



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2012 10:38AM by The Anticult.

There are others posts here and there questioning the banana people.

Search Google for:

30bananasaday scam



But this group is pretty slick and commercial, with a clever name.
Even their name, 30bananasaday...
[caloriecount.about.com]
1 banana is about 105 calories x 30 = 3150 calories a day, which is about the number of calories a large active athletic male needs.

so they are slick.
But to find out if more is going on, it takes some research.
Do they have expensive seminars, etc?


[www.youtube.com]
30Bananasaday.com is a SCAM, phishy activities and no freedom of speech.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2012 10:57AM by The Anticult.

Durianrider looks like a real piece of work, fits right in with the other self-promoters featured in these forums. Follow the money.

[www.youtube.com]
[www.youtube.com]

www.durianrider.org
www.30bananasaday.com
[twitter.com]
www.facebook.com/pages/Durianrider/197363716986830

Here are a bunch of Google searches concerning this guy and his diet.

[www.google.com]

This article is especially interesting.

[paleozonenutrition.com]

A high carb high fructose diet of the sort you get eating all this fruit could be a disaster for any person who carries genetic triggers for insulin resistance syndrome or Type II
diabetes.

The riper the bananas the higher they are on glycemic index--that is how quickly and how much they boost blood sugar levels.

THe other thing is glycemic load--that means how much of the given carb you're eating at a time. Thirty ripe bananas a day is a high glycemic index and high glycemic load proposition.

Ones only hope is to have enough soluable fiber, fat, protein and exercise to off set that blood sugar surge.

And blood sugar peaks about one and a half hour after eating something. (One of my uncles showed me how this worked using his own blood sugar reader.)

So if someone is eating high Glycemic index stuff often during the day and the portions are large, they'd have to be exercising continuously, too.


And note in the citation that banana growing is a big industry in Australia.

(Cough)

More from Google

[www.google.com]

And The Anticult is right--this is a recipe for food obsession.

PS note to athletes:

Eating a high fiber diet can often result in farting and the frequent need to step off one's bike to have a dump.

And one can be a topflight athlete and not even be eating like this and still develop diabetes if one has genetic loading for it.

Sir Steven Redgrave, Olympic rower and 5 time recipient of gold medals found he had developed Type 2 diabetes.

He requires a staggering quantity of calories and carbohydrate to function as an athlete.

But...not everyone is an elite athlete.

And even among elite athletes, body needs differ slightly. Some sincere people I know who have tried hard to be vegetarians (even lacto ovo) kept having health problems until their treating physicians advised eating meat--and the health problems went away.

A 30 banana a day diet may work for a few people. But that doesnt meant its universally beneficial.

Saying something is universally beneficial is at least a messianic/grandiose claim that denies the individual differences for each human person.

Sir Steven Seagrave, Olympic multiple gold medal recipient found he had Type 2 diabetes--despite his being a top athlete.

[webcache.googleusercontent.com]


[www.nhs.uk]

Also, this guy using his aggressive and domineering technique, is one used by many cultish groups.
The Leader of the sect, demeans and dominates everyone, angrily and viciously criticizing them if they question him/her in any way.
Unfortunately, some people respond to that, by following the leaders orders.

This can start with innocuous things, and then grows from there.
Later, the leader orders them to buy his products, and they do.
It can keep going for years, where eventually you have people who will follow the leaders orders, even risking their own, and others lives, like with James Arthur Ray. [forum.culteducation.com]
Ray also was very critical, aggressive and domineering with his followers, and some of them ended up dead.
Being domineering like that is a TECHNIQUE, used by people to control other people.
Its also often paired with occasionally acting "sweet" with a Love-Bomb.
Its carrot and stick.

You can see many sects where the leader is aggressive and domineering like this guy.
People who don't like it, will just resist and get kicked out or quit.
And unfortunately those with a certain vulnerability might stay and take the abuse passively, which is a recipe for exploitation.

Sad to say even happy and healthy people can break down if socially isolated in situations of extreme power imbalance and with a bully for a leader--as demonstrated with Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment--all participants in that one were Stanford university students, were carefully pre-screened to exclude anyone with risk of mental illness, then randomly assigned and given uniforms as guards or prisoners.

In just a bit over a week, those assigned as guards were turning more and more vicious and those assigned as prisoners become more and more compliant and passive.

And everyone forgot they could quit at any time.

Imposing strict control over ones diet is a great way to isolate people socially. To a huge degree socializing and relationships happen and are maintained via food.

Imagine the discord if someone got into 30 bananas a day.

Their partner, spouse and friends who eat differently would be dismayed. This would reinforce the notion that the non 30 bananas a day world is a Hostile Place.

Bang, the person will go on the internet to get reassurance from the other persons following this regimen and whadday get?

Social isolation.

And imagine how hard it would be to dare admit to oneself 'I got involved with something like this? Fear of regret, fear of ridicule might well contribute to keep people on board.

And, having faced that normal people were the ones who broke down in Zimbardo's experiment, lets remember the very many people have been pre-formatted, growing as tiny kids, to accept, rationalize domineering bullying. Who reacted this way because they were so desperate for any sort of adult care that even abuse got equated in their young, unfree minds and bodies, with caring.

And if one is pre-formatted this way, before self reflection is even possible, a person in this predicament may put up with abuse later in life, because they will lack the life saving sense of shock, anger and outrage that are primary ingredients in forming and maintaining boundaries when bullies push at us.



So