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Energy packed fruit
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Though high in calories, banana is low in fat and protein and makes a wholesome diet for energy seekers.
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PICK ME UP: Bananas are delicious, easily digestible and energy-rich.
MASHED BANANA is the weaning food of choice for infants. And with good reason. It is a delicious, easily digestible, energy-rich food, rich in potassium, vitamins C and A, and low in fats and proteins that an infant's delicate digestion might have trouble coping with. As adults, we rarely ever eat the banana in a healthy way. Banana chips, fried green plantain, and banana sandwiches fried in peanut butter (responsible for Elvis Presley's bloated look in the 1970s) are some of most unhealthy ways of preparing this fruit. With 110-150 calories packed into a 100 gm of the ripe fruit, it is easy to see how they can all too easily derail a dieting programme. Other food uses of this Indo-Malayan native include ice cream, jam, jelly, sauce, syrup, honey, wine, flour, and coffee substitutes from green plantains.
Our ancestors did a better job of using this fruit wisely. For them, it was a gift from the gods, a symbol of fertility and good fortune. The age-old practice of growing banana plants in the corner of fields to ensure a good harvest continues in rural India. The people of Tahiti, Samoa and the Solomon islands rely on an ancient method of preserving banana to ensure food supply in times of famine. Large quantities of the fruit wrapped in heliconza leaves and buried in deep pits are life saving during famine. The stored banana will ferment, but will remain fit for consumption for years. For the Polynesians, the leaves were a symbol of peace and truce. For many of us, clean banana leaves are the most environment friendly food wrappers. The leaves and the pseudostem are a valuable source of fibre, which is useful in making thatching material, fishing lines, rope, fabric, handbags, shoes, mattresses and paper, to name but a few uses. The medicinal uses of this giant herb are no less numerous, and every part of it has some alleged use or the other. Of dubious merit are the Caribbean habits of drinking banana sap as an aphrodisiac and smoking banana peel as a hallucinogen. Across the continents, the flowers found use in folk cures for bronchitis, dysentery, and in the treatment of diabetes. The tannin-rich sap was used to treat insect stings, leprosy, epilepsy, malaria, diarrhoea, and piles. The peel and pulp of the ripe fruit have anti-fungal and antibacterial properties. They also contain neurotransmitters that raise the blood pressure and stimulate digestion.
As an occasional dessert, during illness, for pregnant and lactating women, and during strenuous exercise, a ripe banana is the best source of energy, minerals and micronutrients. If you eat bananas plain and count your calories, there is no reason why they cannot be part of a wholesome diet.
RAJIV M
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