A Question

[manofkent99]

Recently there has been a bit of talk about resistant starch and green bananas. Is there anyone who can tell me if 'green bananas' are simply unripened ordinary bananas such as you can buy in the supermarket or are they a seperate variety?
Any help will be much appreciated.

 

[Northerner]

You may be thinking of plaintains, which are a variety of banana that is used in cooking and is less sweet than the conventional yellow banana found in supermarkets. But I'm no expert! Bananas are quite carby, and the riper they are, the faster they will hit your blood sugar levels, but I'm not sure about plaintains. What is it that you have heard?

 

[Vicsetter]

As far as I know they are just unripe bananas and as such will be less digestible and contain less sugar than ripe bananas. It could also be a reference to Plantains which have to be cooked. Like all foods, eat and test to see what happens.

 

[mcdonagh47]

Recently there has been a bit of talk about resistant starch and green bananas. Is there anyone who can tell me if 'green bananas' are simply unripened ordinary bananas such as you can buy in the supermarket or are they a seperate variety?
Any help will be much appreciated.

This Jamaican website gives methods of cooking Green Bananas
http://www.jamaicatravelandculture.com/food_and_drink/green_banana.htm

But it sounds like they are taklking about Plantains.

A couple of facts from QI - banana plants are actually Herbs ; banana bunches grow upwards on the tree not hanging down.🙂

 

[Vicsetter]

They also grow form the roots upwards which is just as well as they don't have any seeds. In St Lucia they cover the banana bunch with blue plastic to stop insects getting at them (and call them St Lucia Condoms).

 

[Vicsetter]

Bananas also contain a lot of potassium and are recommended for muscle cramps.

 

[HelenM]

I think that green banana refers to green dessert bananas ie underipe. (although the starch in plantains is also resistant, cooking will 'attack' the starch structure making it less resistant ) Apparently there is a Japanese diet, the morning banana diet that's become so popular it's become difficult at times to find bananas in the shops.

It's not all bananas though. The highest source of resistant starch in most charts is the navy bean, which turns out to be the haricot bean, as found in your humble tin ofbaked beans!
Cold cooked potato,pasta and brown rice contain significant amounts of resistant starch. Bread made with wholegrains, cooked barley,oats and lentils also have some resistant starch.

A tiny study with healthy subjects showed that 'replacing 5.4% of the carbohydrate content of a meal with resistant starch increased fat oxidation by 23%' when compared with a meal with 0% resistant starch .Increasing the amount of rs to 10.7% of the carb intake ended up with no benefit at all and a larger amount of fat stored.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1743-7075-1-8.pdf
And I've no idea how you would work out whether you were eating the optimum percentage, though the researcher's did say that it would be difficult to achieve the higher rs intake outside the laboratory.

 

[mcdonagh47]

Bananas also contain a lot of potassium and are recommended for muscle cramps.

yes the potassium content makes them slightly radioactive which is why the
Nuclear industry like to say that exposure to such and such a radioactive source is the equivalent of eating a banana

 

[manofkent99]

Many thanks to those who responded, particularly Helen M. I really must look out for unripe bananas inthe market this morning. Once again thank you.

 

[AnnW]

The plantain on the stalls around here looks over ripe to me, but not appetising anyway !!