If you’re lucky enough to live in a banana-growing climate, your farmers market or local store may well sell a variety of bananas. To those of us in less tropical climes, such variety seems like sheer madness—and something to look for when we visit!
What all bananas have in common is a fairly starchy texture, relatively mildly sweet flavor (as compared to other tropical fruits), and the wonderful ability to keep ripening after they’ve been plucked (well, hacked off) from the trees on which they grow.
A Cavendish banana is the fruit of a banana cultivar belonging to the Cavendish subgroup of the AAA cultivar group. Cavendish bananas accounted for 47% of global banana production. The vast majority of bananas entering international trade. The fruits of the Cavendish bananas are eaten raw, used in baking, fruit salads, fruit compotes, and to complement foods. The outer skin is partially green when sold in food markets, and turns yellow when it ripens. As it ripens the starches turn to sugar making a sweeter fruit.
10 facts about Bananas – “nature’s good mood food”
Bananas are often considered a super fruit. They provide many nutritional benefits for the body, but other than their vitamins and potassium, bananas have a bigger effect on our bodies that can help with quick reliefs, such as heartburn. There are also some fun facts that you may not have known.
- The phrase “going bananas” was first recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary and its first known usage of the term has been credited back to 1968.
- Eating a banana can cheer you up. Bananas are the only fruit to contain amino acid, tryptophan plus Vitamin B6, which together help the body produce serotonin, the natural chemical that alleviates depression. That’s why we call them “nature’s good mood food.”
- Bananas have a natural antacid effect, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.
- Bananas are one of the few foods to contain six major vitamin groups.
- Perhaps the reason bananas are so nutritious is because the banana plant is in fact a giant herb.
- Bananas are great for athletic and fitness activities because they replenish necessary carbohydrates, glycogen and body fluids burned during exercise.
- High in potassium and low in salt, bananas are officially recognized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as being able to lower blood pressure and protect against heart attacks and strokes.
- Bananas protect against muscle cramps during workouts and nighttime leg cramps.
- The strings are called phloem. They help distribute nutrients to every part of the growing bananas. To avoid those strings, peel the bananas from the bottom up.
- One of the quickest ways to cure a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels while the milk soothes and rehydrates your system.
