As banana lovers we all have tried this yellow smiley fruit in all its stages of ripening.

We might have eaten green bananas, light-yellow bananas, yellow bananas, spotted bananas or even fully brown bananas. It is up to each one of us which is the most appetizing. But it’s a fact that, as a banana ripens, it becomes sweeter.

The reason: its ripening increases its sugar content (or simple carbs). Then if you like darker bananas, you’ve got a bit of a sweet mouth. And this is good news, because bananas can be a perfect sugar replacement for some of your recipes.

But, what are bananas actually made of?

Bananas, like any other type of living thing, are made of chemicals. In particular chemicals that are categorized as macronutrients. In a few words, bananas are the result of a complex combination of molecules like carbohydrates, water and proteins. 

From a nutritional point of view a medium sized banana (100 g) is composed of:

But bananas are also a great source of several vitamins and minerals. Particularly of Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, Potassium, Magnesium and Manganese. Remember more about this in our interview with Dr Viteri in BananitaBlog. 

Nevertheless there is a big difference between ripe bananas and green bananas. Their type of sugar content varies enormously between these two stages of maturation. 

Ripe bananas contain only 1% starch, while the most underripe banana can contain more than 70% of starch (which is a complex carb consisting of many sugar molecules joined together). This is because, during the ripening process, the starch begins to turn into simple sugars (the long chains of glucose that make up the starch turn into shorter chains of sucrose, glucose and fructose).

In a nutshell, as a banana ripens and becomes fully all brown, its starch has broken down into simple sugars.

But this does not mean that its nutritional content varies. It’s only its flavour that changes and how we process its sugar. Since sugars area a simple form of carbohydrate, it gets easily absorbed by our digestive tract. On the other hand, starch is a carbohydrate of complex form, so it takes longer to get it absorbed by our digestive system.

After uncovering the reason why we like one type of bananas more than others, let’s try some sweet banana recipes already published in our BananitaBlog ➡️

🧑🏻‍🍳Smoothie made of bananas 

🧑🏻‍🍳Mousse with bananas 

🧑🏻‍🍳Banana pancake

🧑🏻‍🍳Ice cream bananas 

🧑🏻‍🍳Cookies and bananas 

🧑🏻‍🍳Banana Bread