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This is an archive article published on November 24, 2022
Why a slightly unripe banana is a better breakfast choice than the ripe fruit
Diabetics should have the green, slightly unripe banana because it is high in resistant starch, which functions like soluble fibres and adds bulk to your food, says Dr Cijith Sreedhar, CMO, Prakriti Shakti Clinic of Natural Medicine, CGH Earth, Kerala
4 min readUpdated: Nov 25, 2022 12:29 PM IST
Unripe bananas also help you absorb nutrients and minerals better, particularly calcium.
Written by Dr Cijith Sreedhar
Bananas are a breakfast staple simply because they are powerhouse fruits that can kickstart your day. But depending on whether you have them slightly unripe or greenish yellow, a ripe sunlight yellow or an overripe speckled brown, there’s a whole spectrum of health benefits at each step of the fruit’s maturity. The question, therefore, is how should your banana look like?
If you are a diabetic, then you should have the green, slightly unripe banana because it is high in resistant starch, which functions like soluble fibre and adds bulk to your food. The conversion of this resistant starch to glucose is what is called ripening. This carbohydrate is difficult to break down and in its unripe form has all the virtues of a vegetable. The amount of glucose is less in this form, so its absorption is reduced considerably. In fact, in a raw state, the fruit becomes like a vegetable rich in fibres. This is the reason why in our traditional cooking logic, the raw versions of high sugar fruits like mango, jackfruit and banana are used in meals as curries.
So what are the benefits of resistant starch in the unripened banana, which acts like a fibre? Unknown to many, fibres are food of the bacteria in the body. We have nine bacteria for every cell. They co-exist with us. Ninety-eight per cent of our bacteria are good as a majority of our body functioning depends on them. The conversion of vitamins is made by bacteria from the food you eat. The bacteria train our immune systems to identify the self and non-self and avoid body functions that cause self-harm. The gut health is determined by short chain fatty acids, which are very limited in the kind of food we eat. It is the bacteria which convert fibres or resistant starch into short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which help in the prevention of chronic diseases.
A June 2018 review in “Nutrition Research” suggests resistant starch also has a lowering effect on total cholesterol and the bad LDL cholesterol. Pectin is another healthy fibre found in unripe bananas, which increases satiety (fullness), dulls out hunger pangs and reduces blood sugar.
While vegetarians can still have calorie-high foods, I have coined the term “vegetablearian,” which is when you have raw fruits like vegetables and keep your sugar indices down.
Unripe bananas also help you absorb nutrients and minerals better, particularly calcium. Only they are lower in antioxidant levels which go up once they mature.
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Scientists at Newcastle and Leeds Universities studied around 1,000 people with Lynch syndrome, a genetic condition that predisposes one to cancer. The findings, which were published in Cancer Prevention Research, highlighted that a daily dose of a resistant starch supplement, equivalent to one slightly green banana over a period of two years, can reduce some cancers by up to two thirds.
If you are at no risk of diabetes, then you can go for the yellow ripe banana, which is rich in phytonutrients and antioxidants that can prevent cell damage. As the banana ripens, the skin acquires brown spots, indicating the amount of starch that has been converted into sugar. The more the number of spots, the higher the sugar content in it. Bananas with spotted skin contain three natural sugars – sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fibre. The mature banana has high levels of tryptophan and boosts serotonin levels. It is rich in vitamin B6, which, among women, reduces symptoms of premenstrual syndrome.
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