“URGENT!!! Never eat an egg and a banana at the same time because the mixture gives a poison that kills within 5 minutes,” reads a warning shared on Facebook.
It comes with two photos of men lying on the floor, seemingly dead, next to a spread of food that includes bananas.
The post urges anyone who receives the message to “publish it if you are a good Samaritan”.
But it is a hoax that has done the rounds before. In June 2018 Africa Check fact-checked the pictures after a professional Ghanaian footballer, Farouk Mohammed, claimed he had been a victim.
The player did not respond to a query about how he had survived. Two food toxicologists told us that it was not scientifically possible for eggs and bananas eaten together to produce a poison.
If the eggs were raw the combination would be more difficult to digest, but not to the point of death.
The only concern was if they were contaminated with other harmful substances, the scientists said.
The original Facebook post was shared tens of thousands of times. It has since been taken down but as this latest share shows, it still has plenty of life in it (no pun intended). - Africa Check (29/01/2019)
It comes with two photos of men lying on the floor, seemingly dead, next to a spread of food that includes bananas.
The post urges anyone who receives the message to “publish it if you are a good Samaritan”.
But it is a hoax that has done the rounds before. In June 2018 Africa Check fact-checked the pictures after a professional Ghanaian footballer, Farouk Mohammed, claimed he had been a victim.
The player did not respond to a query about how he had survived. Two food toxicologists told us that it was not scientifically possible for eggs and bananas eaten together to produce a poison.
If the eggs were raw the combination would be more difficult to digest, but not to the point of death.
The only concern was if they were contaminated with other harmful substances, the scientists said.
The original Facebook post was shared tens of thousands of times. It has since been taken down but as this latest share shows, it still has plenty of life in it (no pun intended). - Africa Check (29/01/2019)
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For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false
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Publishers guideAfrica Check teams up with Facebook
Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.
The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.
You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.
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