Bananas don’t get the love they deserve. Certain, their white flesh means they don’t get a spot on the nutrient coloration wheel, and the dearth of fiber in ripe bananas could make them a mashable mess. However they’re scrumptious, and let’s take a second to understand their potassium.
A medium banana delivers 422 mg of potassium. An underappreciated workhorse, potassium maintains acid–base steadiness, helps construct proteins, and even regulates the heartbeat.
Every of the physique’s trillions of cells depends on potassium to handle fluid steadiness. But most American diets lack the mineral, prompting the U.S. Departments of Well being and Human Companies and Agriculture to label it a “nutrient of public well being concern.”
Potassium isn’t all bananas have to supply. Folks with sort 1 or sort 2 diabetes or prediabetes might really feel compelled to swear off bananas, however of their earliest stage of ripeness, tinged with inexperienced, they pose little risk to blood-glucose ranges due to their resistant starch.
Resistant starch is a carbohydrate powerful sufficient to outlive the digestive juices of the small gut. As a result of it doesn’t break down there, it doesn’t increase blood-sugar ranges. As an alternative, it travels to the massive gut, the place it turns into brunch to your microbiome.
A eating regimen with loads of resistant starch will increase emotions of fullness, prevents constipation, and lowers ldl cholesterol. Not too long ago, an animal research prompt resistant starch from inexperienced bananas can shield towards NAFLD and assist reinforce the intestine lining, soothing situations like inflammatory bowel illness. “I at all times eat my bananas on the green-turning-yellow stage,” says functional-medicine doctor Susan Blum, MD, MPH. (For extra on resistant starch, see “Resistant Starch for a Wholesome Intestine.”)
