Banana Nutrition Facts – Calories, Vitamins and Minerals. Everybody knows bananas and what bananas are good for. It’s a long list of benefits these popular fruits provide and it is widely known that bananas are the go-to fruits of athletes.
A powerhouse of vitamins and minerals, bananas ensure high performance and quick recovery, many athletes preferring them over meat as a protein source and an instant boost of energy.
Bananas Nutritional Profile
From antioxidants and phytonutrients to fiber, including soluble fiber, bananas have many health benefits and are among the top most convenient fruits, regarding accessibility and pricing. They are low in saturated fat and cholesterol, providing approximately 105 calories per one medium-sized serving.
General nutrition information:
Calories: 105 Protein: 1.3 g
Carbohydrates: 27.0 g Dietary Fiber: 3.1 g
Starch: 6.3 g Sugars: 14.4 g
Fat: 0.4 g Water: 88.4 g
Vitamins: Minerals:
Vitamin A: 75.5 IU Calcium: 5.9 mg
Vitamin B6: 0.4 mg Iron: 0.3 mg
Vitamin C: 10.3 mg Magnesium: 31.9 mg
Vitamin E: 0.1 mg Phosphorus: 26.0 mg
Vitamin K: 0.6 mcg Potassium: 422 mg
Riboflavin: 0.1 mg Sodium: 1.2 mg
Niacin: 0.8 mg Zinc: 0.2 mg
Folate: 23.6 mcg Copper: 0.1 mg
Pantothenic acid: 0.4 mg Manganese: 0.3 mg
Choline: 11.6 mg Selenium: 1.2 mcg
Betaine: 0.1 mg Fluoride: 2.6 mcg
Nutritionists recommend eating bananas regularly to ripe long-term benefits such as good heart health, reduced risk of generative diseases and asthma, muscle recovery, good memory and improved mood.
Bananas versatile fruits
Bananas are healthy and sweet snacks that can be consumed daily in various ways: frozen and added to smoothies, sliced and added to fruit salads, on their own, or mashed and incorporated into the muffin batter.
Some of the most popular banana eats also include banana bread, banana pancakes, while overripe bananas make wonderful ingredients for milkshakes, cream pies, tarts, and puddings.
Chocolate-covered banana bites prepared with cocoa powder and coconut oil make a tasty and healthy snack, perfect for boosting energy levels while on the go, and a similar combination of ingredients makes a healthier ice cream option.
What you didn’t know about bananas
That bananas are healthy and that they make good recipes most people already know. But all in all, as popular and common as they are, bananas hide a few surprising facts that you may have never heard about before.
- Rare and exotic fruits: bananas went from being the most exotic of fruits and amongst the rarer in the late 1800s to becoming one of the most common by 1914.
- Harvested unripe: delicate and perishable, bananas are picked when they’re still green and hard and then ripened artificially in distribution facilities that use specific conditions to trick the fruit into ripening.
- Most originate from a plant in South Asia: although there are hundreds of varieties, most bananas come from a single plant originating in South Asia and most of the varieties today are clones of one another.
- Threatened: The most popular of bananas is nowadays the Cavendish, but before the Cavendish, the Gros Michel or the Big Mike banana was the popular variety. It’s almost extinct today due to deadly fungus spreads, and a similar fate awaits the Cavendish, which is currently under the threat of the Panama disease.
- They come in different colors: while most of the commercial bananas are yellow, the fruits come in different other colors too. Bananas can be red, purple, brown and green.
- More popular than apples: Americans consume more bananas than apples, and the Cavendish variety is even more popular than oranges.
- Forbidden fruit: people from certain Christian traditions believe the banana was the real forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.