Growing up in Taiwan, Aaron Cheung would walk outside and within five minutes could enjoy a fresh and inexpensive mango. After moving to the United States, Cheung felt shocked when he discovered the lack of fiber in students’ diets. He decided to make a change. 

Physics senior Cheung met his partner Mihiro Suzuki, a computational engineering senior, in their Food Systems and Sustainability class at the start of this semester and decided to work with each other on their extensive class project. The project, ThatsBananas!, started as an assignment but grew into a campus-wide initiative that uses eye-catching gags — like tying bananas to trees — to encourage students to eat more fruit for a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle. The project held a banana carving event outside the Gates Dell Complex on Thursday. 

“We are passionate about getting people to eat healthy and creating a world where you can eat what you crave,” Suzuki said. “One of the things we decided to do was get people to eat a banana a day.”

Bananas serve as the mascot fruit because of their easy implementation into the daily diet. Suzuki said their original idea for the project did not include bananas, but rather composting as a whole. To focus their efforts, the pair interviewed students on the street and asked them general questions about diet and sustainability. Cheung and Suzuki realized that making an impact required focusing on a problem that both themselves and the students they interviewed face. 

“I asked one student ‘When was the last time you had fruit?’ and he said ‘I don’t know but I have O-Chem to go to,’” Cheung said. “Obviously, the priorities (are)
not there.” 

Cheung said after he realized that students don’t prioritize healthy eating, the next step involved understanding why fruit matters so much. 

“The U.S. (population) spends around $12 billion on costs related to gut health and constipation,” Suzuki said. “If the adult population ate three more grams (of fiber) a day, it would save $2 billion. One banana is three grams of fiber.”

With a following of over 10,000 on his personal comedy Instagram, and the project’s account, @thats.bananas_, he informs as many people as possible using Instagram reels. 

“It sparks the conversation of health,” Cheung said. “The daily reminder and conversation starter hopefully ripples into something bigger and our documentation is a way to get that rolling.”

Finalizing their objective, Suzuki said they wondered if it was a lack of access or a lack of understanding. To find the answer, they hung bananas from trees using string to mimic picking fruit from a tree. Suzuki said this served as a way to get students’ attention and ask them if they knew the importance of eating fiber. 

“Whenever we go to grocery stores we see things packaged, the fruits are all perfect,” Suzuki said. “I feel like there’s a disconnect from where our food actually comes from and the hanging bananas was a way to make that connection for people at UT.”

Informatics junior Pranay Chalasani said their social media created a buzz and encouraged students to stop and think about the food they were eating. 

“When they first started it was like ‘Okay’ but then they started running with it,” Chalasani said. “It’s definitely innovative on ways to promote eating healthy foods.”