✅Helps strengthen bones
✅Protects against ulcers
✅Contains slow-release sugars
✅Lowers risk of heart disease and stroke
Banana refers to the fruits of a herbaceous banana plant (musa), which often reaches a height of 6-9 meters, so many mistakenly believe that bananas grow on a palm tree. Banana is an elongated cylindrical fruit, reminiscent of a crescent moon, with a dense skin and tender elastic flesh, slightly oily texture. The color of the pulp varies from whitish-yellow to rich cream.
Banana in history and economics
Homeland of bananas is considered to be South-East Asia, mainly referring to the islands of the Malayan archipelago (calorizator). Bananas are cultivated and cultivated since the XI century BC, the first mention of bananas dates back to this period when the plant has already grown in India and many other countries where bananas are still an important food and the main product whose import supports the economy .
Banana is a berry?
According to all the botanical features, the banana is a berry, in the wild bananas there are still so many seeds that are practically absent from cultivated varieties. The thick-skinned berries do not need bones, because they have long been grown not from seeds. In the culinary classification, the banana refers to fruits.
The calorie content of a banana is 95 kcal per 100 g of product.
Nutritional value, composition and useful properties of banana
The composition of the banana pulp contains many useful substances: beta-carotene, pectin, vitamins B1, B2, B6, C, PP, as well as potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, fluorine, phosphorus and sodium, fructose and fiber. The use of bananas has a beneficial effect on the work of the heart muscle, reduces the level of "bad" cholesterol, improves the work of the gastrointestinal tract. Bananas cheer up and help prevent stress.
The Harm of a Banana
It must be remembered that a banana is a high-calorie product, so it is unreasonable to eat a bunch of bananas in one sitting. Also, a banana can cause allergic reactions, although such cases are quite rare. Diabetics should remember that ripe bananas increase the level of glucose in the blood, in contrast to the immature one.
Kinds and grades of bananas
Sorts of bananas are many, some edible there are more than a hundred. Usually, edible bananas are divided into two groups - dessert (bananas, which are used in raw form, just like we all are used to seeing on our shelves) and plantains (the fruits that require heat treatment have no fresh taste).
Bananas differ in the color of the peel, the length and size of the fruit. The most famous varieties: Lady Finger, Gro-Michel, Cavendish (dwarfish and giant), Robusta, Valerie, Lacatan, Mysore, Ice-Cream, Red Dacca. The fact that large long bananas is supposedly fodder is nothing more than a myth. Often, small bananas do have a more sweet taste, but it all depends on the type and time of harvest, the banana can simply be immature.
How to choose and store bananas
When choosing bananas, you need to pay attention to dense fruits, without damage and dark spots on the peel. If the bananas are yellow, then the tail should ideally be a little greenish, not dark. Unripe bananas will become sweet if stored at room temperature in a dark place for several days. Ripe bananas are not stored in the refrigerator, where they immediately begin to darken, the ideal temperature is + 15 ° С.
Banana in Cooking
Traditionally bananas are eaten fresh - as a perfect snack, a snack or an additive to cottage cheese, yogurt or muesli. Often a banana is used for cold snacks - dessert sandwiches (calorie). Banana is great for making cakes and cakes, jellies and fruit salads. Also bananas are fried, dried, dried, baked, added to the dough for bread and muffins, used as raw materials for marmalade, flour and syrup.
Exotic dishes from a banana
Yo-yo is a national dish of Venezuelans who fry cut along a banana and fold it, laying in slices of soft white cheese. Peruvians boil and bananas bananas, this dish is everyday and called chappo. In the Philippines, they prepare ketchup from bananas, and in Latin America, they love bananas fried in oil with salt and hot jalapeno pepper.
Growing a banana
For a full maturation of bananas, a subtropical climate, warm and humid, with practically the same day and night temperatures above 20 ° C, is suitable. Bananas, intended for export, are removed slightly immature so that we can enjoy the elastic pulp and sweet taste, rather than the mushy, tasteless substance. In Russia, grow bananas (in the vicinity of Sochi, many banana palms), but until the end does not mature, so basically have a purely decorative character.
At home, it is possible to grow a banana. To do this, take a ripe black banana, remove the skin from it and take the whole seed from the middle of the fruit of the banana and put it on a paper napkin. After soaking in a weak solution of potassium permanganate, the seeds should be dried and disposed in the prepared soil.
For more information on the process of seed separation, preparation of land and planting and growing bananas at home, see the video:
Banana - an amazing fruit that is used "in full", in the course go and tops, and roots. In cosmetology, the property of banana peel has long been noticed and is being actively used to gradually remove even the largest warts. Medics in countries where bananas grow, use young leaves to relieve the condition of the skin after burns, plant flowers - with gastric ulcer and dysentery. Milled dried banana roots are an excellent remedy for preventing digestive tract diseases. Not everyone knows that a ripe banana is an assistant in alleviating the symptoms of a premenstrual symptom.
Will bananas help to lose weight?
In the matter of losing weight, everything depends on the number of bananas eaten and the foods with which bananas are combined. There are special banana mono-diets, you can try to spend a fasting day, during which the main food will be bananas (3-4 pieces) and liquid - mineral water or green tea. Nourishing bananas will help to calmly transfer restrictions in food, but get involved only in bananas still not recommended.
