BANANAS for GOOD HEALTH!
Nature's Best Power Snack can Help Tide You
through the Day when You Need a Boost!Nature's Healthy Power Snack
We all love bananas. They go really well with any other food and beverage combination, from porridge to Nutella and as salad fruit or as an ice cold refreshing smoothie. They are relatively cheap compared with energy snack bars, which are still processed food even if the ingredients are supposedly very healthy. Before your scheduled exercise workout for Pilates, pole dancing, arnis escrima or lifting heavy weights, you can gobble two bananas an hour or so before the regimen and get the energy boost to your blood sugar. Strenuous exercise can give muscle cramps, but if you are well hydrated, and eat a banana, you avoid feeling pins and needles, cramps and soreness during the activity and at night as you recover from the workout. Avoid calcium loss during urination, get stronger bones by adding a banana to your meal.
Nutritional Supplement better than Pills
Avoid getting dizzy spells and fatigue syndrome by eating bananas, it prevents anemia and gives you all the iron you need. High in potassium and low in salt, bananas are officially recognized by the FDA as a nutritional remedy for preventing heart attack and stroke by keeping your blood pressure low.
Bananas help heal even mental distress, the fruit contains high levels of tryptophan, which is converted into serotonin, a phyto-chemical which is the happy-mood brain neurotransmitter Eating a banana can cheer you up and reduce PMS symptoms.Bananas even reduce swelling, prevent type II diabetes, aid weight loss, strengthen the nervous system, and help with the production of white blood cells, all due to high levels of vitamin B-6.
Eating bananas aids digestion
Rich in pectin, bananas aid digestion and normal flushing out of toxins and heavy metals from the body. The fruit aids the stomach in producing digestive enzymes to help in absorbing nutrients. Constipated? High fiber in bananas normalize bowel motility. Diarrhea draining you? Bananas are soothing to the digestive tract and help restore lost electrolytes after pooping. Bananas are a natural antacid, providing relief from acid reflux and heartburn. It is the only fruit you can eat raw that does not cause distress to those with stomach ulcers because bananas coat the lining of the stomach against corrosive acids
Natural cures from a simple banana
Prevent kidney cancer. Protect your eyes from macular degeneration and keep your eyesight for longer. Just by adding bananas to your diet. Build stronger bones by increasing calcium absorption with high potassium bananas. The potassium fix in bananas improve brain functions enough to help you have good memory, learn and figure out things easier. Bananas are high in antioxidants that bind and render inert free radicals to keep you safe from cancer and degenerative diseases.
How to Select and Store
Bananas are picked off the tree while still green, and they often reach the supermarket in this color. If you are consuming them at once, buy the yellow ones, if you intend to keep them for a while get the green.
The fruit should be firm, but not too hard, with bright looking, yellow peel that is free from bruises. Their stems and tips should be intact. While bananas might look resilient, they can actually get squished and bruised quite easily. Be careful how you store them. Ripen bananas at room temperature. If unripe and placed in the fridge, the ripening process will stop and it will not return even after you bring the bananas out.
History
Bananas are thought to have originated in Malaysia around 4,000 years ago. Spreading from there to the Philippines and India. Since the development of refrigeration and rapid transport in the 20th century, bananas have become widely available everywhere else. Bananas grow best in tropical and subtropical regions like in Costa Rica, Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil. These are the top banana exporters in the world today.
How to Enjoy
In addition to being eaten raw, bananas are a wonderful addition to a variety of recipes from salads to baked goods loke cookies, cakes and pastries. Banana frtters are a particular Filipino-favorite, snack food. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches, with a bit of honey, are an all-time favorite for everyone. Chopped bananas, walnuts and maple syrup to oatmeal or porridge and even pancakes for comfort food like no other!
