Bananas, like most fruit, ripen quickly in summer due to higher temperatures. Let’s find out how to keep them, so they don’t blacken. In summer, the fruit should be eaten early so as not to let it ripen too much. Thanks to the higher temperatures, fruit and vegetables tend to blacken immediately during this time of year, as the heat accelerates the ripening process.
One of the fruits that tend to ripen quickly and blacken is the banana, but how to avoid wasting food? A great solution is to freeze them.
Bananas lend themselves well to freezing; the reason? They contain less water than other fruits, such as apples, strawberries and peaches, to be safely placed in the freezer. Freezing bananas is very simple: peel and cut them into slices and then place them in a food container; to eliminate bacteria that may have formed, you can sprinkle a little lemon juice on the surface. The extra advice is to use parchment paper to prevent the various pieces from sticking to each other, or place them on a well-spaced pan and place them in the freezer for about two hours; after that, you can take out the banana slices and put them in your food bag and place them back in the freezer.
In this way, when you want or need a banana, all you have to do is open the freezer and extract the desired quantity; remember that by blending the frozen banana, you can get nana ice cream, a sort of homemade banana ice cream, to which you can add dried fruit or a little 100% natural almond cream as a garnish.
Nutritional Properties
From a nutritional point of view, bananas are included in the whole group of foods – vegetables and fruits rich in vitamin C. As already mentioned in the general article “Banana”, this is mainly water (75%). It is therefore not very different from the other pulpy fruits. Indeed, it seems to contain less than most native ones such as apple, pear, plum, peach, apricot, cherry, strawberry, watermelon, melon etc.
Bananas have many energy properties and, in a low-calorie diet, should be consumed in moderation (100 g portion). Always in line with the nutritional properties of the group to which it belongs, most of the calories of the banana come from soluble carbohydrates ( fructose, glucose, sucrose ), which occupy 23% of the total weight. Fibre represents 2.6%, while proteins and fats are not relevant, winning 1% and 0.3%.
Note
These nutritional values may present some variations based on the different categories, ripening stages, and the techniques and places of cultivation. Banana has a vitamin content that is not particularly significant when evaluated quantitatively but is undoubtedly varied. Discrete concentrations of pro-vitamin A can be observed. Some of the B group (especially B1, B2 and PP) and, obviously, of vitamin C ( ascorbic acid ); only a few traces of vitamin E are present.
Bananas are attributed to remineralizing properties, but this is a real exaggeration.
Among the trace elements of the banana, just like for the other fruits, potassium is considered the most critical mineral – even if, for some reason, the banana is considered an actual “mine” of this nutrient. For this reason, it is often recommended in the diet of those who sweat a lot – such as sportsmen- since potassium and sodium are the two minerals most lost with sweating – and of hypertension – potassium has hypotensive properties—followed by calcium, phosphorus, copper and iron. The iron contained in the banana is not particularly useful in anemia because it is poorly bioavailable.
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