Are bananas and peanut butter a bad thing?

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  • toe1226
    toe1226 Posts: 249 Member
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    I'm not sure what your goals are, but if your goal is to lose weight, then bananas and peanut butter over creamy ice cream is fairly arbitrary. If you are looking to eat less processed foods, then maybe the banana is the way to go. That being said, your sugar intake may assist you in how you feel and your energy levels, but it is irrelevant if your goal is to lose weight.

    I sometimes put 1 banana with pb2 powder (low cal) and a tiny tad of vanilla and cinnamon into a food processor but that comes out to like 150 cal treat. Portions are everything.

    Also, having half of your calories come from bananas and peanut butter might make it hard to fit in other things that will help make you feel good and full (like protein, for example...)

    If you like it, and you are reaching your goals doing it, then by all means, go crazy with the stuff. However, if your goal is weight loss and if you are having any road blocks, you may consider making that portion smaller and focusing on foods that keep you fuller longer. It all totally depends on your goals.
  • bemyyfriend0918
    bemyyfriend0918 Posts: 241 Member
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    It does sound kind of high calorie. What if you make the same recipe, but only use 1 banana, and 1 tbsp of peanut butter, add a little of your flavoring, and the vanilla extract but then blend it with ice....
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,900 Member
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    MeganMeCrazy247 wrote: »
    So I found this awesome recipe online that helps replace ice cream cravings. Basically you freeze a bunch of chopped bananas then blend it with some vanilla extract and a choice of your flavor, in this case I use my Peanut Butter Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams, and it tastes delicious. The thing I'm worried about is if its too much. Basically when it comes down to the ingredients and macro nutrients, I'm eating about 2-3 bananas and 3-4 tbsp of peanut butter along with a tsp of vanilla. Now I feel like that is a lot of bananas. I might even be eating more. I usually eat this when I'm about to exercise a lot or for a post workout smoothie type thing. Anyone have any suggestions or comments, concerns? I don't want to get backed up with bananas to be honest haha, I just feel like with the amount of banana and chocolate peanut butter I'm basically eating the equivalent of chocolate ice cream. What do you think???

    Weigh the bananas and peanut butter next time and compare it to your chocolate ice cream. This definitely sounds like more calories and sugar than 1/2 C of chocolate ice cream to me but because you're not sure of quantities, neither am I. However, if you normally eat a pint of premium ice cream in a sitting (not judging - I used to do that), then yes, PB and banana might be a better option.

  • extra_medium
    extra_medium Posts: 1,525 Member
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    Just eat ice cream. Peanut butter has a depressing number of calories.
  • mom22dogs
    mom22dogs Posts: 470 Member
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    You could probably eat an entire pint of ice cream and have less calories than your concoction. I was figuring in my head the calories, and it could be up to 1000 calories. I'd much rather eat 300 calories of ice cream.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
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    For weight loss, calories are king. You should not be guesstimating high calorie items like bananas, peanut butter, or ice cream if weight management is your goal.

    "Healthy" depends on your entire diet as a whole. There is nothing wrong with some ice cream if you got the nutrition you need throughout the rest of the day. I have ice cream on the nights I ate "well" throughout the day - plenty of veggies and whole grains, enough fat but not too much, protein on point. If not, I try to instead have a snack that fills in whatever I didn't get. And if I really went overboard for the day, I have a square of dark chocolate and a cup of green tea.

    I personally would much rather have 200 cals of real ice cream than 200 calories of frozen banana, but everyone's tastes are different!
  • KiyaK
    KiyaK Posts: 519 Member
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    Without reading any other replies....

    YAAAAAAS. I love frozen blended bananas! I usually do one with cocoa powder or chocolate chips. One scoop of pb is usually enough if I'm doing that flavor. If it fits your calories &/or macros, you're good to go. I do it for late night snacks sometimes because it's better than the equivalent amount of ice cream. Plus, I wasn't able to eat dairy for a while, so it was a wonderful substitute.
  • cerise_noir
    cerise_noir Posts: 5,468 Member
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    nutmegoreo wrote: »
    MeganMeCrazy247 wrote: »
    arditarose wrote: »
    It's probably more calories than a serving of ice cream. What is your goal with this recipe? Are you trying to find a lower calorie alternative to ice cream, or meet a macro goal? If you weigh a banana, depending on how many grams it is, it can have up to 120 calories. So 3 bananas could be 360 calories right there. 2 tablespoons of PB is 190, if you're have 4....do the math. This is not a low calorie dessert.

    I realized that the calories were going to be high, but do you think it's better than eating creamy ice cream? I felt it would have at least less sugar...idk

    The amount of sugar (unless you have medical conditions which require monitoring) is less important for weight loss than total calories. However, as WinoGelato did the math for you, looks like your concoction doesn't come out ahead in either category. Personally, I like bananas and peanut butter, but I just take the banana and put peanut butter on it. If I want ice cream, I eat a serving of that. Achieving your goals requires awareness of calories consumed, number of calories burned (throughout the day, not just during activity), and paying attention to nutrition and hunger cues. These ridiculous substitutes for everything to make it "healthier" just muddy the water.

    Yes to all of this.

    Ice cream is okay. That banana concoction has about the same, if not more calories and sugar.
  • dragon_girl26
    dragon_girl26 Posts: 2,187 Member
    edited August 2016
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    A bad thing? No.
    A high calorie thing? Potentially, especially with the peanut butter.
    Not saying it would taste bad, though..far from it. I don't know that it's "better" than regular ice cream, either, unless you're lactose intolerant or something.
    Now I want some ice cream! D'oh!
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
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    I think I could probably eat an entire container of Ben & Jerry for less calories than your creation. One banana and a measured amount of peanut butter is one thing. 5 bananas and a huge scoop of peanut butter is another story.
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,978 Member
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    A banana (1) peanut butter (2 tbsp) sandwich on your bread of choice (2 slices) topped w/honey (1 tbsp) is a delicious and nutritious snack.

    You just have to account for the roughly 600 cals that it will cost you. ;)
  • Queenmunchy
    Queenmunchy Posts: 3,380 Member
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    The frozen banana with peanut flour was my facorite dessert before. As everyone else said, weigh and log.
  • nikkitimkitembo89
    nikkitimkitembo89 Posts: 27 Member
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    I think bananas and peanut butter is good for clean eating and can be a healthy treat in lieu of processed crap and even though it may be high in sugar it's natural and falls low on the glicemic index unlike processed sugars that skyrocket your glucose and at least the calories aren't empty I'm going to try it but what I would do is scale back the recipe a bit and use maybe one banana and two measured tablespoons of Justin's dark chocolate hazelnut butter that should put it at around 270-310 depending on the size of the banana I use a food scale to measure my banana in grams and then log them that way because the difference between bananas can vary substantially
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    Something called "Justin's dark chocolate hazelnut butter" is processed.
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 5,948 Member
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    nikkitimkitembo89 wrote: »
    I think bananas and peanut butter is good for clean eating and can be a healthy treat in lieu of processed crap and even though it may be high in sugar it's natural and falls low on the glicemic index unlike processed sugars that skyrocket your glucose and at least the calories aren't empty I'm going to try it but what I would do is scale back the recipe a bit and use maybe one banana and two measured tablespoons of Justin's dark chocolate hazelnut butter that should put it at around 270-310 depending on the size of the banana I use a food scale to measure my banana in grams and then log them that way because the difference between bananas can vary substantially

    What exactly makes a sugar "processed"?
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    I think bananas fall higher on the GI than a good-quality ice cream (due to the cream). Adding the peanut butter will lower it, normally, although the peanut butter mentioned by OP (probably delicious) is a high sugar one due to the chocolate, probably.

    None of this is anti the recipe, which is probably tasty, but I'd definitely weigh and calculate the calories and I wouldn't eat it in lieu of ice cream personally unless I liked it better. But some people would probably prefer the fat in nuts to that in cream (the sugar seems about the same).
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Something called "Justin's dark chocolate hazelnut butter" is processed.

    Don't you know, things are only processed if my diet du jour says it's evil.
  • brichards_
    brichards_ Posts: 113 Member
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    As long as there is no dairy and no processed sugar or corn syrup then it's just fine!
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    brichards_ wrote: »
    As long as there is no dairy and no processed sugar or corn syrup then it's just fine!

    what happens if any of those things are present....?

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