Healthy living Are you Bananas about Bananas?

What’s not to like. If you peel back the skin of the banana, you’ll find a tasty fruit that is rich in vitamins and minerals. So how should you eat them?

Bananas are classified as a type of berry and are a kind of superfood. This is because they contain many more vitamins and nutrients than their round counterparts (apple for instance). In fact, bananas have 5 times as much Vitamin A and iron*, and 3 times as much phosphorus as apples. Bananas are also rich in potassium, fibre, and natural sugars. The potassium helps lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of heart problems.**

Bread

There can’t be many people who haven’t heard of banana bread by now but if you still haven’t tried it for yourself, you can find our best banana bread recipe here. To add some colour to this, just throw in a handful of blueberries for an aptly named blueberry and banana bread recipe. Now you are more than ready to move on to banana & blueberry muffins. Banana cake is slightly different to banana bread (or banana loaf) as it contains more smashed bananas and is more moist and less easy to toast.

Pancakes

Bananas are easy to peel, and pancakes are easy to make so why not combine them? Discover the easy way of how to make banana pancakes. You’re probably going to feel good after you’ve eaten your pancakes because bananas contain the mood enhancing amino acid, tryptophan***, and Vitamin B6 that helps the body produce serotonin.

Let’s not forget

Bananas are also great in overnight oats and smoothies. They are also fabulous pre-workout snacks because the potassium they contain helps maintain nerve and muscle function during work outs. One more thing you might not have known about bananas – they float!



* https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/11-banana-health-benefits-you-might-not-know-about/
** https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21403995/
*** https://www.webmd.com/diet/foods-high-in-tryptophan#1

*Daily intake of 3g of beta-glucan from oats. Oats beta-glucan has been shown to lower/ reduce blood cholesterol. High cholesterol is a risk factor in the development of coronary heart disease