Thoughts on bananas. ..
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Hmm... I wonder how they keep the bananas from going bad or over ripe through 2+ weeks of transportation?
Ah, refrigerated container ships, missed that part
Well. Just by being alive in certain parts of the world, we're probably using more energy than an entire small village in other parts. Perhaps quitting bananas and selling my SUV will be the first step towards equalizing that imbalance. Just kidding. I don't drive an SUV0 -
100 grams of banana has less sugar than 100 grams of grapes.0
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I have lost all my 25/26 pounds, and am maintaining, while eating around one banana a day, at breakfast, with cereal or with a peanut butter sandwich. My blood work report last December reported low potassium, and a banana a day was a nice, painless way to help build that mineral up. I like them, too, a great deal.0
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PeachyCarol wrote: »azulvioleta6 wrote: »PeachyCarol wrote: »azulvioleta6 wrote: »A large banana is not very different from a cupcake in terms of macros. They are very high in carbs/sugar, so they always need to be weighed carefully.
If you are not sensitive to carbs, they are probably just fine. If you are...they are probably a no-go or an occasional treat food.
Personally, I prefer plantains if I am going to stray that far from my goals. I just enjoy them more.
There are tons of foods that have more potassium with fewer carbs and calories if that is what you are after. Try a cup of spinach--only 8 calories!
Please. Our carb intakes are not that far apart for all you say you eat low carb and... yet I have room in my day for a banana.
No different than a cupcake? Hyperbole.
And you would know what my carb intake is per day...how?
If a banana is 60 grams and I need to be around 75G/day, that is going to seriously limit what I can eat for the rest of my day. It's not a terribly brilliant way to spend your carbs if you need to be on a moderate or low-carb diet.
I am not talking about an enormous Panera cupcake...I am talking about a small one with minimal frosting.
Your diary is public. 100 grams of banana is 23 grams of carbs, and unlike the cupcake will provide vitamin B-6, vitamin C, and magnesium in addition to the potassium.
It's also a pretty brilliant way to sweeten up a bowl of plain Greek yogurt.
You seem to eat around 100 g of carbs a day. Your choice, of course whether to eat bananas or not as part of that allowance -- but as is your usual pattern, you seem to think what rules you decide to apply to yourself should apply to everyone else.
Why do you do that?
Sweetens up my bowl of oatmeal every weekday morning too......0 -
azulvioleta6 wrote: »Yes, us knuckleheads who actually LOOK at the nutritional details. Bananas have many, many times the sugar of carrots or beets. Most tropical fruits are quite a bit higher in sugar than other fruits.
The other thing to consider in eating bananas is that they aren't an environmentally or socially sustainable product. A few reasons why:
1. They are monocropped and grown with extraordinarily high levels of pesticide, in countries where there are no limitations on the kinds of pesticides that can be used. Cavendish is pretty much the only variety grown commercially these days, which is horrible for the food web. Worker conditions on banana plantations are atrocious.
2. Bananas have a huge carbon footprint. For example, bananas grown inland in Ecuador are trucked from the southern part of the country to Machala or Guayaquil, then put on refrigerated container ships, where they spend 2+ weeks in transit getting to the US. Then they have to be trucked inland--bananas are not moved by train, which would be somewhat more energy efficient. Most bananas come into the US via San Francisco, New Orleans or New York. If you live a long ways from one of those ports, your banana had to be driven to you, burning gas and contributing to global warming. An apple that you can buy locally? Much more responsible in terms of carbon burned to get the fruit into your hand.
3. Bananas have huge social and political impacts. The history of bananas in Latin America is not pretty--see United Fruit and Guatemala for one of many examples. Currently, in Ecuador, banana production is controlled by several families that are basically a mafia. If you've ever heard of the Lebanese mafia in South America...well, they are funded by bananas. In Europe, most bananas are imported from Africa, were there are similar horror stories. Export crops like bananas prop up dictatorships.
Food is all about choice--nutrition is just one aspect of the choice that we are making.
I guess I'm lucky where I am, as our bananas come from Queensland, but a few hours away. I can eat them guilt free
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Apples, bananas, oranges - I've got all three in my kitchen
Apples - took me a while to be able to consistently buy apples that weren't mush when I bit into them. They actually tend to leave me ... Not necessarily hungry but something like it shortly after eating them, but I love slicing them up and taking them to the gym. Unlike bananas, they travel nicely and won't turn to mush while sliced up in a sandwich bag, and I can eat a quarter of an apple right in the middle of a class if I feel I'm running low on energy
Oranges - awesome. But outside of winter, they're just not as sweet (in my experience)0 -
azulvioleta6 wrote: »PeachyCarol wrote: »azulvioleta6 wrote: »A large banana is not very different from a cupcake in terms of macros. They are very high in carbs/sugar, so they always need to be weighed carefully.
If you are not sensitive to carbs, they are probably just fine. If you are...they are probably a no-go or an occasional treat food.
Personally, I prefer plantains if I am going to stray that far from my goals. I just enjoy them more.
There are tons of foods that have more potassium with fewer carbs and calories if that is what you are after. Try a cup of spinach--only 8 calories!
Please. Our carb intakes are not that far apart for all you say you eat low carb and... yet I have room in my day for a banana.
No different than a cupcake? Hyperbole.
And you would know what my carb intake is per day...how?
If a banana is 60 grams and I need to be around 75G/day, that is going to seriously limit what I can eat for the rest of my day. It's not a terribly brilliant way to spend your carbs if you need to be on a moderate or low-carb diet.
I am not talking about an enormous Panera cupcake...I am talking about a small one with minimal frosting.
I am not sure I follow you. Do you mean a banana with 60 grams of carbs? That would be one heck of a banana!
One day I had a 145 gram (total weight) banana, and it was 138 calories and about 33 or so grams of carbs. I just figured out to get 60 carb grams, your banana would have to be about 262 grams (total weight) and 249 calories.
There is nothing wrong with bananas, even if you choose a low carb diet. If you like bananas, you just work it into your carb total for the day. Have a half banana or something.
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I honestly do not understand the need to moralize what essentially comes down to personal preference. This seems to happen a lot when it comes to food choice.0
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PeachyCarol wrote: »I honestly do not understand the need to moralize what essentially comes down to personal preference. This seems to happen a lot when it comes to food choice.
This is how I feel as well. If you like bananas, or any food, excellent. If not, then don't eat it. Food and food and none is good or bad. 0 -
They are fine to eat as long as you are in a caloric deficit. I normally have a banana and a protein shake post workout.0
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Several people have mentioned that bananas have about 100 calories. If you Google search it, you will find the same answer. But here's where I'm confused:
Banana
Total fat 0.4 g
Total carbohydrate 27 g
Protein 1.3 g
According to my math: 0.4*9 + 27*4 + 1.3*4 = 116.8 calories
I come across this issue with a lot of foods. Am I doing the math incorrectly? I understand rounding can cause some slight differences, but 100 vs 117? Take that difference times most of the food you eat every day, over the course of a lot of days, it adds up.
How are those 17 calories disappearing?
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Several people have mentioned that bananas have about 100 calories. If you Google search it, you will find the same answer. But here's where I'm confused:
Banana
Total fat 0.4 g
Total carbohydrate 27 g
Protein 1.3 g
According to my math: 0.4*9 + 27*4 + 1.3*4 = 116.8 calories
I come across this issue with a lot of foods. Am I doing the math incorrectly? I understand rounding can cause some slight differences, but 100 vs 117? Take that difference times most of the food you eat every day, over the course of a lot of days, it adds up.
How are those 17 calories disappearing?
Because bananas come in different sizes?0 -
PeachyCarol wrote: »I honestly do not understand the need to moralize what essentially comes down to personal preference. This seems to happen a lot when it comes to food choice.
This x 1000.
I don't even like bananas that much. I only eat them in the winter. But this discussion is making me super pro banana.0 -
Several people have mentioned that bananas have about 100 calories. If you Google search it, you will find the same answer. But here's where I'm confused:
Banana
Total fat 0.4 g
Total carbohydrate 27 g
Protein 1.3 g
According to my math: 0.4*9 + 27*4 + 1.3*4 = 116.8 calories
I come across this issue with a lot of foods. Am I doing the math incorrectly? I understand rounding can cause some slight differences, but 100 vs 117? Take that difference times most of the food you eat every day, over the course of a lot of days, it adds up.
How are those 17 calories disappearing?
Because bananas come in different sizes?
Of course they do, but the math still doesn't add up. The numbers supplied are for a typical banana, and the macros do not add up to the total calorie count.
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Maybe the fiber?
Do they add up worse than other fruits?0 -
Does every single listing for bananas give that breakdown or is that just one you found?
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lemurcat12 wrote: »Maybe the fiber?
This might be it. I am looking at a similar breakdown but it lists the banana at 105. Fiber is 3g. So if you subtract three grams of carbs from 117, you get 105.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »PeachyCarol wrote: »I honestly do not understand the need to moralize what essentially comes down to personal preference. This seems to happen a lot when it comes to food choice.
This x 1000.
I don't even like bananas that much. I only eat them in the winter. But this discussion is making me super pro banana.
Agreed.
After reading through this thread, I am officially a banana advocate.0
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