We all know that high fibre foods help keep you regular and prevent constipation, as well as protecting your intestines from diverticula disease and haemorrhoids. Sadly, only one in four adults is getting enough fibre to keep their insides healthy.
High in fibre, bananas included in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, without resorting to laxatives. A medium banana will provide about 10% of your fibre needs for a day.
The banana is an excellent way to get fibre into the diet of a toddler, an older person, or anyone who is not too keen on having to chew foods.
You may not be familiar with the term ‘resistant starch’. This is starch that resists digestion and goes all the way through the small intestine and passes into the large intestine to act very much like fibre. Bananas have resistant starch. There are larger amounts of resistant starch in greener bananas than found in ripe bananas.
Resistant starch offers many benefits as it is eaten up and used as a fuel by the friendly bacteria in the large bowel, helping to protect the bowel from becoming cancerous, while also having a mild laxative effect.
Resistant starch that passes into the large bowel may be used by the bacteria to produce gas, and this may explain why eating one or two green bananas, high in resistant starch, can give some people a bloated feeling.
As a banana ripens, the starch (including resistant starch) is transformed into sugars, making the banana softer and sweeter, just how most people enjoy them.
Adding a banana sandwich, made with wholemeal bread, will provide about 8g of fibre, which is over a quarter of your daily needs.
