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The cooking banana ( Musa × paradisiaca ) is also known as the vegetable banana , flour banana and in some places as the paradise fig or banana fig . In contrast to the well-known dessert banana , the cooking banana can only be eaten raw when it is fully ripe, i.e. when the skin is practically black everywhere.
Use in the kitchen:
Can you eat plantains raw? Green or yellow plantains are not edible raw: even when the plantain is fully ripe, only a small amount of the starch they contain is converted into sugar. In addition, their flesh is not particularly tasty raw. Green plantains have whitish-yellow flesh that tastes mild to sour or even astringent (similar to rhubarb ) when raw. Only after cooking or other heating can the starch be broken down during the digestive process (by the enzyme amylase). 1 When cooked, the taste of a plantain is more similar to that of a potato or carrot , depending on its ripeness.
Depending on the ripeness of the plantains, there are different ways of preparing them. Unripe fruits are best cooked and pureed, while riper plantains are suitable for steaming, roasting, baking, grilling or deep-frying. Dried green plantains can also be ground into flour and used in cakes and pastries, as well as for thickening soups and sauces.
Basically, plantains are suitable for all dishes that use potatoes. A chutney with plantains also tastes delicious. Cooked plantains thicken stews, soups or other dishes due to their high starch content. Roasted or fried, they have a more crunchy consistency. Even the (male) flower petals can be prepared as a vegetable and are particularly popular in Asia.
Plantains are a staple food, particularly in tropical and subtropical areas. Uganda, one of the largest producing countries, has an annual per capita consumption of 172 kg, meaning that plantains provide about a fifth (18%) of a household's calorie intake. 2 A popular dish in Latin American countries is patacon (tostón in Spanish), made from flat, fried pieces of plantain. Kelewele or kelawele is a side dish popular in Ghana, also made from fried and very spicy plantain slices or cubes. Aloco (also alloco or aloko) is a West African dish made from plantains fried in palm oil . In restaurants on the Ivory Coast it is served with a sauce made from onions and tomatoes . One of Uganda's national dishes consists of plantains wrapped in banana leaves and steamed in water for several hours before being mashed into a pulp. This porridge, known as matoke, is a common accompaniment to meat and fish and is eaten with a peanut sauce. 3
How do you peel plantains?
Green plantains are best peeled with a knife, as the skin is harder than that of a fruit banana. First, cut off the ends and place the plantain on a cutting board. Now cut the skin lengthways and pull it off in strips using your fingers and a knife. You can simply cut away any leftover peel. For plantains that are in the yellow ripe stage, it is enough to score them with a knife before you can peel them by hand.
Vegan recipe for carrot and plantain stew:
Ingredients: 600 g carrots , 400 g plantains (ripe), 2 onions , 1 clove of garlic, 1 piece of ginger (approx. 2 cm), 2 tablespoons oil (e.g. rapeseed oil ), 400 ml vegetable stock , 3 tablespoons lemon juice , salt ,pepper , chili flakes .
Preparation: Peel the onions, garlic and ginger, chop finely and sauté in oil until translucent. Peel the carrots, cut into slices and add. Pour in the vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Peel the plantains, cut into slices about 2 cm thick and add to the saucepan. Cover and simmer everything over a low heat for about 20-25 minutes. When the vegetables are soft, simmer them uncovered until the liquid has evaporated. Take the pan off the stove and roughly chop the vegetables with a vegetable masher. Season to taste with salt, pepper, lemon juice and possibly chili flakes.
Vegan recipes with plantains can be found under the note: " Recipes that have the most of this ingredient ".
| Not only vegans or vegetarians should read this: Vegans often eat unhealthily. Avoidable nutritional mistakes . |
Shopping - where to buy?
Plantains are available in selected, mostly larger supermarkets such as Coop , Migros , Edeka , Rewe and Spar available. Organic supermarkets such as Alnatura and Denns also often sell them. Denner , Volg , Aldi , Lidl and Hofer rarely stock vegetable bananas.
Their external appearance ranges from small to large (usually 30-40 cm) and from angular to pointed. When unripe, vegetable bananas are usually still green and turn creamy yellow to black as they ripen. In addition to the supermarkets mentioned, they can be found in almost all larger department stores, at specialist retailers for exotic fruit and vegetables, and in foreign grocery stores. They are usually also available individually, as "single fingers". When buying, the plantain should be plump, although an unsightly, brown to black skin is not an indication of inferior quality.
The import of banana blossoms during the summer is very irregular. It is best to inquire at a specialist retailer of fresh, exotic foods.
Found in the wild:
Wild bananas include the original forms of the dessert and cooking banana, Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana . Wild bananas mostly reproduce via seeds, cultivated bananas almost exclusively reproduce vegetatively, via root runners. The wild forms of the bananas we know, which originate from tropical Southeast Asia, are green, small and have many large seeds, similar to a prickly pear ( Opuntia ficus-indica ).
Storage:
At room temperature, plantains ripen on their own in eight to ten days, while higher temperatures accelerate the ripening process. Stored at 7 to 13 °C, they can be kept for up to three weeks. Even when ripe, the skin of the plantain often remains green or turns creamy yellow to black in spots. Fully ripe plantains can be peeled and individually wrapped and stored in the freezer.
Ingredients - nutritional value - calories:
Raw plantains contain around 122 kcal/100g and are very low in fat and protein. Around a quarter of the carbohydrates consist of starch, which is largely not converted into sugar even when ripe. 1 The composition of the ingredients changes only slightly when cooked.
Potassium is well represented in raw plantains with 499 mg/100g. Avocados (485 mg) and breadfruit (490 mg/100g) have very similar potassium values. Very good sources of the essential element are herbs such as dried parsley (2680 mg/100g), legumes ( white beans : 1795 mg/100g) and nuts ( almonds : 730 mg/100g). This alkali metal is an important intracellular ion (K+) and is responsible for the osmotic pressure in every cell. 4
Plantains contain around 18 mg of vitamin C per 100 g when raw and around 10 mg when cooked. Spring onions and zucchini have similarly low levels as raw plantains. Yellow bell peppers contain ten times the amount of the water-soluble vitamin (184 mg/100g). Ascorbic acid, as this important antioxidant is also called, performs very important tasks in the human immune system. 4
The B vitamin pyridoxine (vitamin B 6 ) is still worth mentioning at 0.3 mg/100g. Dessert bananas contain similar values at 0.37 mg/100g and peanuts at 0.35 mg/100g. Very good sources of the water-soluble B vitamin are nuts and whole grains or pseudo grains, such as sunflower seeds (1.35 mg/100g) or wheat bran (1.3 mg/100g). Pyridoxine is involved in many enzymatic reactions and in protein metabolism. 4
Folate, the folic acid equivalent , is also contained in small amounts in plantains at 22 µg/100g, just like in eggplants or pecans . Pulses are very good sources: cooked mung beans provide around 159 µg/100g, cooked lentils 180 µg/100g. 4 An adequate supply of this B vitamin is particularly important during pregnancy (and before!), so 550 µg per day is recommended. Teenagers and adults should consume around 300 µg per day through their diet. 5 The water-soluble vitamin folic acid is necessary for cell renewal.
In addition to biotin, plantains also contain magnesium and small amounts of vitamin A. You can read more details in the nutrient tables at the bottom of the text.
You can find all the ingredients, the coverage of the daily requirement and comparison values with other ingredients in our nutrient tables. In the article Nutrients explained you will get a detailed insight into the topic.
Health aspects - effects:
How healthy is a plantain? Compared to dessert bananas, fully ripe plantains contain a significantly higher proportion of indigestible, resistant starch, which is why plantains require heat treatment before consumption. The positive effects of resistant starch are well known. Since the small intestine cannot digest and absorb resistant starch, or only partially, bacteria ferment the fiber in the large intestine and thus promote healthy intestinal flora. They protect the intestinal wall from cell changes and support its barrier function. Resistant starch also has a blood sugar regulating effect. You can be sure that you will absorb sufficient resistant starch with a balanced diet - consisting of whole grain products, pulses, but also bananas. 6
As mentioned in the above paragraph, the resistant starch contained in plantains regulates blood sugar. This is why plantains are also tolerable for diabetics in small quantities. The glycemic index of raw plantains is very low, while cooked ones are in the middle range (50-70). The GI indicates the blood sugar-raising effect of the food consumed. The reference value is glucose, which has a GI of 100. 7
Plantains are gluten-free and therefore recommended for people with gluten intolerance. The flour substitute made from unripe plantains is a particularly good alternative for special diets. The dried and ground green plantains have hardly any taste of their own in this form and are therefore very versatile. When preparing them, it is important to note that their use is naturally limited because they lack gluten. However, pancakes, cookies or some cake and bread recipes work excellently.
Dangers - Intolerances - Side effects:
The fact that plantains are often fried or baked in fat reduces their health value massively. The heated fat and possibly salt they contain have no positive effect on health. However, when cooked gently or eaten fully ripe, plantains are nutrient-rich and energy-giving foods.
If you eat plantains when they are raw and green, the indigestible starch will cause stomach pain. They also don't taste sweet and are rather unpleasant.
Bananas contain the substance tyramine, which can cause high blood pressure, headaches or migraines in sensitive people. The biogenic amine formed from the amino acid tyrosine is often the trigger for food allergies. People who take monoamine oxidase inhibitors (also known as monoamine oxidase or MAO inhibitors) or MAO inhibitors due to depression, panic disorders, Parkinson's or Alzheimer's should avoid foods with a high tyramine content, as these reduce the breakdown of tyramine from the food consumed. 8
Folk medicine - natural healing:
In West Africa, banana leaves or banana peels from the wild form Musa acuminata are used to cover open wounds. Scientists at Jacobs University Bremen found that bananas contain many polyphenolic compounds, some of which have antibacterial and disinfectant properties. In addition, the banana components also have astringent properties. These compounds change the proteins on the skin and form a kind of protective layer on wounds. 9
Occurrence - Origin:
The representatives of the species Musa paradisiaca ( Musa x paradisiaca ) are cultivated hybrids. This means that they do not reproduce through a normal flowering process, but rather through parthenogenesis, i.e. vegetatively. Such root runners are genetically identical to the mother plant, so they are clones. This method of propagation of cultivated bananas makes them very susceptible to pests. Highly cultivated varieties are pollen-sterile and seedless. It is assumed that they originated through crosses between the species Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana . 10 Breeding began 7,000 years ago in Papua New Guinea. 11
Where do plantains grow? Bananas originate in the tropics, partly in the subtropics or in the western Pacific region. 12 In 2018, plantains were grown in a total of 52 different countries, with many plantations in Central Africa, South America and Southeast Asia. 13
Cultivation - Harvest:
The most common form of cultivation for plantains is monoculture, similar to fruit bananas. The cultivation and care of these two varieties is identical. They require a consistently warm climate (annual average temperature above 20 °C), plenty of sun and well-distributed rainfall. Although they can survive low temperatures down to 0 °C, they then stop growing. They prefer loose, well-drained soil and require a 20 cm thick layer of mulch made of organic material. Bananas are very susceptible to wind damage. 14
An ideal method of growing bananas would be multi-storey cultivation. Indigenous peoples of the tropics and subtropics create so-called forest gardens, which hardly destroy the forest in its original state. In this way, many different crops benefit from each other and there is no need to use pesticides to combat diseases and predators. Agroforestry or eco-farming also uses elements of multi-storey cultivation. This ecologically harmless permaculture method of cultivation should not be confused with terrace farming, in which humans intervene massively in the ecosystem. 15
The yield of plantains is significantly lower than that of dessert bananas. This is due, among other things, to the fact that this fruit is mainly used for subsistence and export is of secondary importance.
The most well-known disease in bananas is Panama disease. These parasitic Fusarium fungi can completely destroy entire plantations. Attempts are being made to breed resistant bananas, but these usually become susceptible at some point. The "Black Sigatoka" fungus is also dangerous. The infected plant turns black and dies. Conventionally grown bananas are therefore sprayed with pesticides or other pesticides up to 50 times a year. But the pests can change and thus continue to pose a danger. Experiments with the genes of wild bananas are intended to enable resistance in the future thanks to genetic engineering. 16
General information:
Like dessert or fruit bananas, plantains belong to the banana species Musa × paradisiaca L . The banana family (Musaceae) has only two genera: Musa and Ensete . The latter does not produce edible fruit, which is why it is not so interesting for cultivation. The genus Musa , on the other hand, is divided into 5 sections, Australimusa and Eumusa being the most important. Australimusa bananas are the textile bananas native to the Pacific region, i.e. Musa textilis. From these, fibers (Manila hemp) and a type of plantain are obtained. All fruit bananas, including plantains in general, belong to the Eumusa section. There are numerous varieties. The red plantains ("Red Jamaica" or "Red plantain") are also relatively well known. 17
Alternative names:
Other common names than those mentioned above are baking banana or horse banana. In English, the cooking banana is called cooking banana, starch banana, green banana or plantain, the latter being derived from the Spanish plátano. In Africa, the cooking banana is known as platan or plantan and in Brazil it is known as banana-da-terra.
Literature - Sources:
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