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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: 5,988 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.

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