Bananas!

This week my cache of bananas did not want to ripen for love nor money. They stayed green until the end of the week and went all brown and speckled in 24 hrs. I sure can't eat 6 bananas in 2 days. I like my bananas as close to ripe as I can get them, more yellow then green without brown speckles. The banana itself needs to be firm with a little bit of give. Bananas are the cream base for my smoothies and without them I find my smoothies to be lacking. They need to be just ripe, but sadly those suckers stayed green for way too long.

With this experience I have had to find out how to pick the perfect bunch of bananas and I found that this quest also came with some good information.

First off, Bananas contain many nutrients such as Vitamins A,B1, B2, B3,B5, B6,B9, B12, C, E,K, Choline, Calcium, Manganese, Potassium, Phosphorous, and Zinc. They are Cholesterol free,have both Omega 3 and Omega 6. 1 medium banana is about 105 calories and 27g of carbohydrates. They also contain roughly 88 grams of water.They are a complex carbohydrate until they ripen and get speckled and brown, at this point the starch is more sugar.  Trying to find out whether a banana was a complex carb or a simple carb was a little bit of a task, but boils down to what stage of ripeness the banana is in!

Green or Tinged green = complex carb because it has more starch then sugars.
Brown and Speckled = more simple carb because the starch has been/is being converted to sugars.

Banana distributors have control over their bananas! Apparently they have large air tight ripening vaults that allow them to have the beautiful bright yellow skin that signals to us lay people they are ripe or near ripe. They can also slow down the ripening of their bananas so the green bananas can sit in the store a little longer.


I did learn that you should buy bananas from several bunches, some ripe or near ripe so you can have them in the next couple of days and a few others in varying stages of not so ripe so they can last through out the week.

References:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/482491-fructose-and-glucose-in-bananas/
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1846/2
http://brokensecrets.com/2010/02/03/how-to-accelerate-and-slow-banana-ripening/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/419955-the-carbohydrates-in-bananas-and-oranges/