Banana

Food · Fruit · Tropical

Connected to · 1

food source · 1

Vitamin B6
Bananas are often reduced to a potassium fruit, but their more reliable strength is vitamin B6: one medium banana supplies a good share of an adult's daily need.
Mechanism · 2
Mechanism · A helper in the amino acid workshop
In the body, B6 becomes pyridoxal phosphate (PLP), which helps more than a hundred enzymes: it moves an amino group from one molecule to another, or clips one end off an amino acid to turn it into a messenger molecule. The last step in making several of the brain's neurotransmitters depends on it.
Numbers · Not the potassium champion
One medium banana supplies a good share of an adult's daily B6. Bananas do have potassium, about 358 mg per 100 g, but they are far from the top; potato with its skin has more by weight. A banana tastes sweeter as it ripens because its starch is turning into sugar, not because it gains B6.

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What is banana · varieties and ripeness

EVIDENCEGUIDE 1

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A banana keeps ripening after it is picked: enzymes in the flesh cut its starch, piece by piece, into sugar. So the riper it gets, the sweeter and softer it is, and the less resistant starch is left to reach the large intestine. The chapter on how starch turns to sugar as bananas ripen covers what this means for blood sugar and the gut.

Banana is one of the world's highest-volume fruits, but one banana can differ quite a lot from the next. The most common kind in stores is the Cavendish type of sweet banana, and almost every banana we eat as fruit is one of these. The other big group is plantain, which is high in starch and low in sugar and has to be cooked and eaten as a staple.

So before talking about banana nutrition, ask two things: which kind of banana, and how ripe.

Educational content, not medical advice — consult a clinician.

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