I read today that nutritionists - at least some of them - recommend to eat the banana with the peel. They argue:
"(The skin) contains high amounts of vitamin B6 and B12, as well as magnesium and potassium. It also contains some fiber and protein," San Diego-based nutritionist Laura Flores told LiveScience.
Uh-huh.
People in India eat them with peel. Or so the scientist says.
Aha.
I will not. I'll follow the monkeys, which do peel them. I mean: we live in the Chinese Year of The Monkey!
Instead I baked a delicious soufflé as side dish today:
"Cauliflower cheese with Lord Dalrymple's top" - no, not a Daisy Dalrymple mystery, but a real Edwardian dish that I found in the highly recommendable "Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook" (a tip from Sue, whom I became friend with at Crete).
Yes - I ate my greens - and who will be over-anxious about that teeny-weeny bit of butter, cream, eggs and cheddar?
As for using banana peel --- well, I might be tempted to follow another tip:
"Add a few sclices of banana peel to a bucket of water and let the mixture sit for a couple of days. Use this to water your plants."
I might - as soon as I've found out how much "a few slices of banana peel" are.
I know a dog which loves banana peel.
ReplyDeleteI know (really, no joke) that goats are very keen on banana peel.
DeleteThat's interesting research. I doubt I'd eat banana peel though. Have a good week!
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't either - but what I find so interesting is that it has evidently to do with conditioning. One isn't used to, so one will not. I see people behave very differently with persimmon from the kaki-tree: some eat it with the peel, others peel it. Have a good week too!
DeleteI read just last week that we are supposed to eat the orange peel and throw away the rest of the orange. This was written by a vegan scientist. I don't know if it is the same one writing about the banana. A nutritionist followed up by saying that this was total rubbish and that the vegan was most likely to eventually fall ill.
ReplyDeleteI only know that the white inside the orange peel is very full of - I think - vitamin B - so I will not peel that off so meticulously as before. And we eat the orange peel in marmelade or as candied peel (the latter not for me, ugh). I read what they have to say, but as it changes so very often, I only try what I think might work (and tastes good). As to vegan: I think it is not healthy - or one has to be very, very good in substituting a few things that are not in plants.
DeleteI love bananas... not the skin though! During a conversation with husband at breakfast one day, he asked me why I was peeling a banana the wrong way....??? I'd never thought about it until then; I remove the peel completely from the other end of the "stalk". He eats his (the right way!) by breaking the skin from the stalk's end and leaving the peeled skin dangling down the sides....just like a monkey.
ReplyDeleteThanks to this observation, now I also watch to see who peels bananas the wrong way! Greetings Maria x
Hahaha, Maria: now that my awareness of the problem how to peel a banana "the right way" is awakened, I will be on the look-out. And maybe (I'm always on the practical side) you will join me in offering sensational classes like "How to peel the feminist way, Sister!" - or: "How to peel a banana the French way. Censored", or "Banana-peeling - for the left-handed male." :-) :-)
DeleteHa ha Britta, you do have a sense of humour! From now on you'll be on the lookout for banana peelers. No matter how many bananas I eat I do not absorb vitamin B12 and have to have it injected into me. I eat persimmon with the skin - easier and less messy - but only if I'm certain that the fruit is from a farm Kaki tree and far from traffic. X
DeleteI know why Mr. Maria eats bananas "the right way." Cast you mind back to childhood. I am sure he played outdoors all day, as did I. When he rushed indoors, "Mom, I'm hungry," and she gave him a banana to take back outdoors, she peeled it half way down. The reason was to keep the banana clean as possible until eaten. Conversely, it may have been to keep little hands from being more sticky, but I'm going with the former. At least that's the way my mother did it. I'm sure she learned it from her mother. As neither remains for me to ask, I'll just baldly state the origin of the right way.
Delete@ Maria: When husband and I were in Rome last year, there were kaki-trees near the Villa Borghese - some fruit on the path - but I didn't take them - as you say: to near to traffic. (I always wonder at a lot of fruit shops here in Berlin: all the fruits on display on the sidewalk of multi-lane streets... )
Delete@Joanne: I remember my mother peeling them too that way :-) And it might be easier to "crack" the peel - you take that "handle-stem" and draw it back.
DeleteI love bananas - such an easy, clean, healthy and good-tasting snack. (If they are very ripe I bake them (halved) in a little butter, then put runny honey on them, in the pan, and a little bit cinnamon - and it is so easy and delicious!)
I sometimes get that dry lining of the peel when it sticks to the banana. That's as far as I go.
ReplyDeleteYes, Emma, me too - though I even don't like those little "threads".
DeleteDear Brigitta, My wife has lately taken to tilling banana peels into the rose garden --having read they will make the plants more vigorous. She hasn't asked me to eat any yet.
ReplyDeleteOh, Geo., you always make me chuckle! For roses I can see the nutritional value immediately - as in that water (though I think digging them in is better - to fetch old banana peel after a week out of the watering can does not sound too tempting :-)
DeleteThose nutritionists are welcome to do it. Pas pour moi. And also, the advice will probably change tomorrow. Not to mention, if the banana is not organic, don't all the chemical residues collect in the peel? Your cauliflower cheese dish, however, sounds delish!
ReplyDeleteImagine, Sue: us making a test with those nutritionists! (As often in their valuable tests 5 will do). We will take notes about mime, expression, and length of chewing and measure their health after a course of treatment after seven weeks.
DeleteThe dish - and its title, which to me sounds somehow funny, can one really say 'Lord Dalrymple's top??? - was great.
Good Lord - the stress!!! Am I eating my bananas the right way? I'd thought that I'd mastered the Art of Peeling Bananas, but I am either hopelessly behind the newest accepted practice, or just slow.
ReplyDeleteWhatever - I won't be eating the peel, but may try to dig it into the soil around the roses.
Dear Pondside, today I found another article - where nutritionists - in earnest! - tried to tell us that the avocado pit (!) is very valuable too - "Throw it into a good-working blender! Though it might taste a bit bitter" - I will not live THAT healthy, I am sure.
DeleteI remember my mother, who, following an advice to add calcium, threw well-washed eggs completely into a blender - crunch--- she never served such pancakes again :-)
My aunt tested my reaction to a banana and said I was allergic to them. This was done by some esoteric maneuver involving holding the banana in my hand. I was sorry to have to disappoint her by explaining that I never eat the peel and had never had an adverse reaction from the thousands I'd already eaten. I think digesting the peel would be a long process.
ReplyDeleteHow come that your aunt tried that? I heard of this esoteric test (just can't remember what it is called) - and clever to point out that you did not eat the peel. I think (the peeled) banana is very healthy - and just yummy.
DeleteI think that that applies to nearly all fruit and vegetables Britta ...... all of the goodness is in the skin but, it doesn't taste very nice so I won't be doing it !!!!! I would consider watering my plants with it though !!! XXXX
ReplyDeleteBut our beauty is more than skin-deep, Jackie! I wish you a wonderful week-end. Britta XXX
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