No bananas due to sugar content?

Sauleeh
Sauleeh Posts: 83 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Heya everyone. I'm trying to educate myself a little more so I want to hear about your knowledge on the subject.
I have two girls I work with both have had personal trainers set up food plans for them. Both have said that their personal trainers don't recommend eating bananas because of the sugar content. But isn't the sugar in a banana different? I don't eat bananas every day but I'd eat them pretty often as a little snack to fill me and I would never be worried of the sugar content. Is there a reason why they'd be advised not to eat a banana over the sugar in them? Is there a reason? I just got pretty annoyed at them for speaking about bananas being so bad because nobody has ever complained about gaining weight from too many bananas...
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Replies

  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    No, the sugar isn't different from sugar from other sources. It could be up to priorites, for instance wanting more protein on a restricted calorie allowance, but bananas (and no other foods for that matter) will not in themselves make someone gain weight or not lose weight. It's about calories.
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 6,002 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    At the moment, sugar is so demonized that people are avoiding perfectly good whole foods that, gasp...have sugar in them. My guess would be that the trainers are just going off of recent diet trends and probably don't have much actual nutritional knowledge.

    ^^^This...
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    If you like bananas--eat them if they fit in your calorie goals. There's always alot of hype about some food or another. Bananas have their place in nutrition, as do all foods.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    Allow the girls their little delusion and you do you.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    psychod787 wrote: »
    I would think it may have more to do with caloric density. A large banana has 120 cals I believe with 30grams of carbs. Only 3 grams of fiber. A carb is just a sugar wrapped in a polysaccharide chain I believe. Bananas are just carb dense.

    A 135 g banana (which strikes me as pretty big, but I think I look for smaller bananas, most of mine are 90-105 g) has 120 cal and (since the calories are mostly from carbs), about 27 net carbs. It has 16.5 g of sugar, only about 1.5 g of protein, less than .5 g of fat.

    For anyone who knows anything about food, this is not surprising, all fruit (but for avocados) is carb dense in that fruit is mostly just carbs. Makes it a bad thing to make the main focus of your diet IMO (I'm no Freely), but carbs aren't bad or anything so it doesn't make fruit something to avoid.

    Comparison: 210 g of blueberries have 120 cal, 25 g net carbs, 1.5 g of protein, just over .5 g of fat.

    Carbs are sugars or starches or, in the US, fiber, and starches are sugars linked together that your body easily separates back to sugar. If sugar were terrible in and of itself, sure, carbs would be an issue, but sugar is instead your body's preferred fuel.
  • janisseshirley
    janisseshirley Posts: 50 Member
    lemurcat 12, you said all fruits are carb dense. I also saw where someone wrote that carbs are sugar. Since I am diabetic I have been told to avoid carbs. So what carbs are good for me that I shouldn't avoid? Fruits and vegetables? Being the case should I avoid certain ones in order not to go over my suggested carb allowance?
  • Fuzzipeg
    Fuzzipeg Posts: 2,301 Member
    Bananas are high in potassium, this can be a useful for many, just a thought beyond the sugar content which comes with some fibre which is also helpful in a rounded diet a banana being a whole fruit. If it fits you numbers and you like them go with a small one.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited February 2018
    janisseshirley wrote: »
    lemurcat 12, you said all fruits are carb dense. I also saw where someone wrote that carbs are sugar. Since I am diabetic I have been told to avoid carbs. So what carbs are good for me that I shouldn't avoid? Fruits and vegetables? Being the case should I avoid certain ones in order not to go over my suggested carb allowance?

    I'd ask your doctor (or ideally a referred dietitian who is a diabetic educator), but what I have learned from people here who have put their T2D into remission (plus some reading), the advice is usually:

    Eat high carb foods with fiber (some fruit is high in fiber, not all), and protein.

    Limit carbs per meal (part of making sure it's a balanced, mixed meal).

    Probably go with a more moderate carb diet overall vs. a higher one (you can fit in fruit on 150 g of carbs, however, which is moderate).

    Test after eating to see how foods affect you, as not all carbs are equal. Usually non starchy veg are so high in fiber and low in net carbs that it's not an issue, and a number of people have told me they have no issues with fruit. I believe the evidence is that having fruit in your diet is considered positive in treating T2D (although it could just be correlated with a healthy overall diet).

    If you have chosen to follow a low carb strategy, you will, of course, need to limit higher carb foods and bananas are one (maybe eat smaller servings of higher carb fruits, depending on how low your chosen limit is). But that's different than suggesting (as I thought the other poster was) that carbs are inherently bad, because sugar.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    The only thing I notice is bananas are fairly low in fiber compared to other fruit (looking at apples in my diary). I do usually have one banana at lunch, but I munch on a couple apples a day as well as that gets me about half the fiber I need.
  • ekim2016
    ekim2016 Posts: 1,199 Member
    banana a day is my way... 105 calories for meadium
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,099 Member
    edited February 2018
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    I would think it may have more to do with caloric density. A large banana has 120 cals I believe with 30grams of carbs. Only 3 grams of fiber. A carb is just a sugar wrapped in a polysaccharide chain I believe. Bananas are just carb dense.

    So are lots of foods. What's the point?

    Only a reason I think that their trainers might have told them to avoid bananas. Nothing wrong with carbs at all, or fat, or protein. just a guess. If these ladies are on really low calories such as dieting down for a show or photo shoot and have low carbs, then I could see how a trainer might tell then to avoid them.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Bananas make the roof of my mouth itch...
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    janisseshirley wrote: »
    lemurcat 12, you said all fruits are carb dense. I also saw where someone wrote that carbs are sugar. Since I am diabetic I have been told to avoid carbs. So what carbs are good for me that I shouldn't avoid? Fruits and vegetables? Being the case should I avoid certain ones in order not to go over my suggested carb allowance?

    Hi, my diabetes is in remission from significant weight loss. I see that @lemurcat12 and @rheddmobile provided comprehensive responses.

    "Avoid carbs" is such generic advice, and decidedly unhelpful. When I was diagnosed insulin resistant, I asked for referral to a dietitian and I started my long journey to education. I tested my blood sugar after meals and pretty quick learned what would spike me.

    I am pretty sure you haven't managed to avoid ALL carbs. So some will be necessary. It's really not about eliminating carbs but monitoring how much and eating them as part of the overall diet. Eating on a schedule is almost as important as what you are eating.

    I didn't eat bananas very often but when I did I'd be sure to have some protein as well.
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,099 Member
    edited February 2018
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    I would think it may have more to do with caloric density. A large banana has 120 cals I believe with 30grams of carbs. Only 3 grams of fiber. A carb is just a sugar wrapped in a polysaccharide chain I believe. Bananas are just carb dense.

    Sugars and carbohydrates are essentially the same thing. A polysaccharide is just a chain of linked sugars. Starch is an example of a polysaccharide. So pasta is sugar, a potato is sugar etc etc. Carbs are sugar in the sense that they are comprised of sugar units and when digested essentially are just sugar.

    The only semantic difference between them is that carbohydrates refer to anything that is hydrated carbon (ie the formula CxH2xOx where x can be any number) while the term sugar tends to be reserved for small molecular hydrocarbons like monosaccharides (glucose, fructose) or disaccharides (sucrose, maltose etc). But all of them are the same in terms of energy content per gram.

    The real issue is that a lot of modern foods used heavily refined sugar as an additive which adds to the overall sugar content of foods that normally would not have a lot of sugar. As sugar tends to be low satiation per calorie that has aided in the growing problem of obesity for sure. Things like high-fructose corn syrup for example. Problem is the general public just waaaay oversimplified that into "sugar is bad" which it most certainly is not. Too much sugar can lead to caloric excess, like with too much of anything.

    Foods that tend to be high sugar and low nutrients tend to be the "bad" foods in terms of diet only in the sense that they have a lot of calories for the amount of satiation you get out of them. Banannas are fairly high sugar but they also have a lot of nutrients...high in potassium for example. I'd say you'd be better off having a bannana than a bowl of pasta or a piece of white bread.

    Agreed, healthy food is always better than refined. As a flexible diet follower, I know no food is bad or good.
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 6,002 Member
    ldscott716 wrote: »
    The fruit quiets the beast. Celery does not.

    Indeed...
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Bananas make the roof of my mouth itch...

    Allergic response. Avoid.
  • 143tobe
    143tobe Posts: 620 Member
    There really should be an 11th commandment. "Thou shalt not hate on bananas." And this is being said by someone who does Keto.
  • janisseshirley
    janisseshirley Posts: 50 Member



    As a general rule, you should not be going over your carb allowance, whether foods are "good for you" or not, because hyperglycemia is not good for anybody. But your carb allowance is only a starting point until you learn what you can and can't tolerate. Aim for never higher than 180 (the ADA recommendation) after meals, with no higher than 140 (about the highest non-diabetic people reach after eating) after most meals, and preferably even lower than that.[/quote]

    I do monitor my glucose levels and I stay within the 180 range after meals. As for my carbs, I had been adding lots of fiber to my diet which seemed to make up most of my carb allowance. I don't seem to have spikes, but I think my sugar is more controled by my medicine right now than my diet. So should I lower my carb intake? It is mostly made up of fruits and vegetables and grains. I do not eat pastas or potatoes or white breads or buiscuits, or gravies anymore.

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