Potassium in bananas

[Mowque]

wow, i didn't think anyone would actually bring up Carl Sagan..."star stuff contemplating other star stuff"........whatever else, that man could turn a phrase

 

[Birdjaguar]

You can get high off bananas if you get a load of them and scrape the inside of the skins and put it in a baking tray and cook. Then smoke the resulting substance. Awww yeah.

So in summary, fruit works in mysterious ways and sometimes we can't explain them.

Thanks dude. You've just given me something to do this weekend.

Boggles my mind how some things come about. Seriously, what in the devil made anyone to even THINK of doing that in the first place?

Legacy of the sixties.

“Dude: I cannot believe the polarized response you are getting to mellow yellow. They either play along or fall for it. Great job. In case no one has sent it to you yet, Donovan recently told how this all came about. Donovan claims he had no idea where this came from all these years, until Country Joe McDonald told him this story at the rock and roll hall of fame induction in 1996:

“Far away and unbeknownst to him, Country Joe McDonald and his buds had stumbled upon a large fake banana from a storage area of floats (like for a parade) and drove around the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood with it, just as a way to get attention for their upcoming concert. McDonald was seized by the inspiration to tell the more gullible hippies that you could get high by smoking banana peels through his bullhorn. By sheer chance, Donovan released Mellow Yellow two weeks later and the myth spread fast. Donovan says the song is about feeling groovy like in jazz circles, where the term mellow was used all the time.”

 

[Perfection]

wow, i didn't think anyone would actually bring up Carl Sagan

They don't call me Perfection for nothin'!

 

[LulThyme]

Couldn't potassium be metabolized by the genetic structure of banana cells? is that even possible?

Potassium is an element, not a chemical.
If by metabolize it you mean "create it", it would require a nuclear reaction, so no.

 

[AngryZealot]

It's perfectly acceptable to describe potassium as a chemical; everything is a chemical, even water. Metabolism is simply the combined processes of anabolism (construction of molecules) and catabolism (destruction of molecules), so technically potassium could be metabolized by changing its oxidation state, but I don't know of any cell that does that. The genetic structure (DNA and associated proteins) is pretty inert as far as catalysis, so no, the genetic won't metabolize anything on its own.

 

[LesCanadiens]

Boggles my mind how some things come about. Seriously, what in the devil made anyone to even THINK of doing that in the first place?

Actually, you can't get high off bananas. That's nothing more than an urban legend.

 

[Mowque]

It is NOT perfectly all right to call potassium a chemical...it isn't. It is an element, a very different beast. Water is more accurately a molecule.

 

[AngryZealot]

A chemical substance is a material with a definite chemical composition... A common example of a chemical substance is pure water.

Chemical: a substance produced by or used in a chemical process.

To a chemist, potassium and water are chemicals. "Element" is an abstract term. Instances of elements (the atoms themselves) are rightly described as chemicals if they are not bonded to anything else. Pure potassium reacts with water; water potassium must be chemicals.

 

[Shekwan]

Actually, you can't get high off bananas. That's nothing more than an urban legend.

Yeah I don't think it's possible. You could get high and then eat a banana. That's always good high food.