With Warmer Weather comes Great Responsibility…To Keep Frozen Bananas in Your Freezer at All Times!
Now that the spring and summer are upon us, it’s your duty as someone who cares about eating healthfully to make sure your freezer is stocked with peeled, ripe bananas at all times.
Cheap, easy, sweet, and speckled: frozen bananas have got it going on–both from a HEALTH perspective and from a healthy CULINARY perspective.
Why are bananas such a sweet match with sweaty-weather season?
1.) They’re plentiful in potassium.
Everyone knows that bananas are a fantastic source of potassium, so let me just remind you that in sweat season (aka spring and summertime), we’re all obviously sweating a lot. Sweating a lot means we’re losing a lot of electrolytes. Losing a lot of electrolytes means we can get dehydrated and weak and cranky. Bananas, loaded with their 400mg of potassium, help replenish our electrolytes and relieve us of dehydration, weakness, and crankiness (for the most part).
ALSO, and here’s the kicker – potassium puts an end to BLOATING. The potassium in bananas fights off the sodium that makes you look swollen and weird. So eat them naners! Because the last thing you want in your short shorts is to be all flabby and puffy…right?
2.) They’ll have you trippin’ on tryptophan.
Aside from making us smile by looking oh-so-cute in their speckled yellow coats, bananas actually can make us smile by pumping us with tryptophan, too. (Yes, like the typical Thanksgiving turkey effect.) Tryptophan gets converted into serotonin, which is the happy-mood brain neurotransmitter. (And who doesn’t want to smile more in the summertime?!)
3.) They lend themselves to THREE OF THE BEST SUMMER TREATS YOU CAN MAKE! Like…
#1: SMOOTHIES
Bananas are to smoothies what tan-lines are to tans, or what April showers are to May flowers; you can’t have one without the other!
Throwing a perfectly frozen banana in a smoothie is what gives smoothies their creamy, dreamy goodness. Frozen bananas act like a superhero in smoothies – thickening them, sweetening them, chilling them and making it so you can’t taste the healthy greens you (better have!) thrown into them.
I recommend throwing 1/2 to 1 whole frozen banana into each smoothie you make!
#2: SOFT SERVE ICE CREAM
Yes! You read that right. Soft. Serve. Ice. Cream.
Sans dairy or cream. Sans loads of processed sugar. Sans waiting around for an ice cream truck or driving to an ice cream shop.
Banana ice cream couldn’t be more enjoyable to eat and more easy to make. It’s arguably THE most delicious thing you can make with fruit. And did I mention it requires 2 ingredients and about 20 seconds?
Watch this video to see how easy it is to make! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ow9oSqegkI)
And check out how to make
Strawberry banana ice cream: http://bit.ly/strawbananicecream
Mint chocolate chip banana ice cream: http://bit.ly/PIMPmintchocochip
Pumpkin spice banana ice cream: http://bit.ly/pumpnanaicecrea
#3: BANANA BON BONS
Banana bon bons (or ban bans as I affectionately like to call them) are little bites of refreshing chocolately goodness. They’re dessert decadence without dairy, a sweet treat without added sugar and hey–nobody has to know it took you minimal time to make such a crowd-pleasing treat!
Here’s how to make them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ97TNiDIzw
PS. In case you’re curious why RIPE bananas rule and unripe (green) bananas drool, here’s a short explanation:
Ripe fruits are alkaline forming, while unripened fruits are acid forming. Brownish bananas are ripe, and green bananas are unripe. You do the math.
Green bananas are binding and constipation-forming. Ripe bananas have an awesome soluble fiber which helps us have healthy (and more frequent) bowel movements.
Brownish bananas are sweet and help curb sugar cravings. Green bananas are just gross and sour. (I guess this is a personal opinion).
When bananas get spots, it means its starches have fully converted into easily digestible simple fruit sugars. Without the brown spots, these bananas are full of hard-to-digest starches that can upset your stomach and cause indigestion, bloating, inflammation, and gas.
The brown speckles on the ripe bananas indicate that all of its nutrients have converted into those simple sugars and will be more easily absorbed by your body. The speckles are the banana’s way of shouting, “I’M READY! COME AND EAT ME.” (Which is far more effective than a mega-phone.) Green bananas haven’t produced all of its nutrients and so they don’t give you as much nutritional bang for your buck!
-Ripe bananas are smooth and help make wonderfully silky smoothies or ice creams. Green bananas are chalky and do not contribute as positively to smoothies or ice creams.
