Bananas Nutrition - Fiber in bananas

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. Virtually all studies of diet and bowel cancer show a lower risk in those eating the most fruit and vegetables (9 p255).
Sadly, only one in four adults is getting enough fibre to keep their insides healthy (14). A medium banana has 2.7g of fibre, about 10% of your fibre needs for the day (9, 12).

 If you have constipation, bananas included in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, without resorting to laxatives. 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 is more resistant starch in just ripe bananas than found in very ripe bananas. Resistant starch offers many health benefits to us because when it enters the large bowel it is eaten up and used as a fuel by the friendly bacteria that live there. The bacteria then produce compounds that help protect the bowel from future cancer, 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 (15).

 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 (16, 17). Adding a banana sandwich, made with wholemeal bread, will provide about 8g of fibre, which is over a quarter of your daily needs (9).

 References: 09. Commonwealth of Australia 2006. Nutrient Reference Values for Australia and New Zealand 12. NUTTAB 2010 Online Searchable Database. Food Standard Australia New Zealand 14. National Nutrition Survey. Nutrient Intakes and Physical Measurements. Australian Bureau of Statistics 1995 15. Cummings JH, Beatty ER, Kingman SM, Bingham SA, Englyst HN. Digestion and physiological properties of resistant starch in the human large bowel. British Journal of Nutrition 1996; 75: 733-747 16. Cordenunsi BR, Lajolo FM. Starch breakdown during banana ripening: sucrose synthase and sucrose phosphate synthase. J Agric Food Chem 1995; 43: 347-351 17. Pennington JAT, Douglass JS. Bowes and Church’s Food Values of Portions Commonly Used 18th edition Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins 2005
Source: australianbananas.com.au