Healthy snacks can be green, yellow or brown!

Have you ever wondered what level of ripeness is the best for your favorite healthy snack? Green, yellow or brown? Luckily, at Chiquita, we know a thing or two about bananas! So here’s a handy Q&A for you to discover all about banana nutrition – colors and all.

Can you eat green bananas?

Yes! And in fact, in many parts of the world people actually prefer to eat green bananas. People all over the world know about the benefits of bananas. The banana is an amazingly popular and versatile fruit and people eat them in all sorts of ways.

For example, in the Caribbean, green bananas are called the ‘Caribbean Fig”. They are used like a vegetable and often sliced and added to salads or mashed and made into porridge.

In Puerto Rico, ‘alcapurria’ is a favorite roadside snack. It’s a tasty mix of grated taro root and green bananas, filled with a blend of ground beef, sofrito, capers, olives and pimentos. Yum!

In Uganda, locals make a spicy green banana mash with sautéd onions, cumin, garlic, chillies, tomatoes and tomato puree. And in Asia, green bananas are eaten boiled, mashed, fried or curried. So yes! The answer is – you can eat green bananas and they are dee-lish!

Are green bananas good for you?

Yes – green bananas have great health benefits! They are a better source of fiber than yellow bananas – which can help maintain a healthy bowel. They also have less sugar and have the maximum amount of vitamins and minerals at this green stage.

Bananas are also one of the best potassium rich fruits – with 100g of banana containing around 17.9% of our recommended daily amount of potassium. Potassium helps us regulate our nervous system and stabilize our blood pressure. Bananas also have loads of vitamin B6, which helps support red blood cell formation and a healthy immune system.

Are yellow (riper) bananas also good for you?

Of course! A perfectly ripe yellow banana is THE best quick and easy healthy breakfast. As bananas ripen, their starch content turns into simple natural sugars (sucrose, fructose and glucose) and these sugars are healthy, indeed. In tandem with soluble fiber, natural sugars provide a steady, long-lasting energy to fuel your morning.

What is the best thing to do with a ripe yellow banana?

Everything is the best thing to do with a ripe yellow banana! A yellow banana has got to be the world’s greatest healthy snack! They’re also the perfect pre workout snack, post workout snack, travel snack, and healthy snack on the go. And let’s not forget everyone’s favorite thing to do with the humble yellow banana – make banana bread! Yellow bananas are also fantastic to use in healthy smoothies and slicing on top of oatmeal or granola in the morning – the ultimate healthy breakfast.

What about bananas with brown spots? Are they bad?

Not at all! As bananas age, their skins develop small brown spots. These are known as ‘sugar spots’ and they’re actually amazingly good for you.  If you peel a banana that has brown spots, you’ll discover that the fruit inside is still good – just a bit riper and sweeter than it was when its skin was sunny yellow.

In fact, the more brown spots, the sweeter the fruit. So don’t throw away those lovely brown spotted beauties. They’re still perfectly good to eat. In fact, bananas this ripe are ideal for most banana recipes like our delicious and easy Thanksgiving Pie!

How do I know if a banana is too old?

If for some unknown (!) reason your bananas have been neglected and gone brown… you can still use them! Brown or even black bananas are great for banana recipes like banana bread, banana smoothies and any baked banana product.

An overripe banana can also be frozen – but be sure to open them up first. Blend these beauties with milk and other fresh fruits for a super easy and delicious healthy breakfast. Or try one of our recipes… like this fantastic post-workout Chiquita banana protein shake, which is the perfect post workout snack. Even those really mushy bananas are great for pancakes, waffles, cookies, and of course banana bread – the list is endless!

Whether you Chiquita bananas are green, yellow or brown – they’re always a powerhouse of nutrients and the best healthy snacks. So don’t be afraid to put a big bunch of Chiquita bananas in your shopping bag the next time you’re at the store!