🍌The Banana Effect: Why Ripeness Matters for Your Blood Sugar

🍌Two bananas with the same amount of carbohydrates can have a completely different impact on your blood sugar. Let’s explore why this happens.

As bananas ripen, their glycemic index (GI)—which measures how quickly a food raises blood sugar—changes 📈.

This is crucial to understand because the same food, with the same carb content, can affect blood sugar levels differently depending on its ripeness.

Unripe Bananas: Low GI and Slower Digestion

When bananas are unripe (green), they contain more resistant starch, a type of carbohydrate that resists digestion in the small intestine.

Resistant starch acts more like fibre, slowing down the digestion process and causing a slower, more gradual release of glucose into the bloodstream 🐢.

As a result, unripe bananas have a lower glycemic index, which means they have a minimal impact on blood sugar. To learn more about the glycemic index, click here.

Plus, unripe bananas contain less sugar than ripe ones.

The carbohydrates in an unripe banana are mostly complex starches, which take longer to break down.

This slower digestion means the body absorbs less sugar at once, leading to a more controlled release of glucose and a steadier blood sugar level 💪.

🍌 Ripe Bananas: Higher GI and Faster Absorption

As a banana ripens, the starches gradually convert into simple sugars—mainly glucose, fructose, and sucrose.

This natural conversion process is why ripe bananas taste sweeter.

Because these sugars are more readily absorbed by the body, ripe bananas have a higher glycemic index, typically ranging from 60 to 70.

This means that after eating a ripe banana, your blood sugar is likely to spike more quickly compared to an unripe one, even though the total carbohydrate content remains similar.

The faster digestion and absorption of sugar from ripe bananas can lead to a more immediate increase in blood glucose levels 🚀.

This is ideal if you want a quick snack before your gym session 🏋️‍♀️.

🤔 Why the Difference?

The difference in glycemic index between ripe and unripe bananas boils down to the type of carbohydrates they contain.

In unripe bananas, carbohydrates are mainly in the form of resistant starch, which digests slowly.

In ripe bananas, these starches have turned into simple sugars, which digest much faster, causing more rapid glucose absorption and a higher blood sugar impact.

While both unripe and ripe bananas contain roughly the same amount of carbohydrates, the form these carbs take drastically alters how they affect your blood sugar.

Understanding this difference can help you predict how your body might respond to the banana based on its ripeness.

🌟To easily understand the glycemic index of your food, simply scan it with Haema, and the app will calculate it for you! Download it here.

See you next week with more insights.

Jish 💜
Type 1 Diabetic & Co-Founder @ Haema

We’d love to see how you incorporate low-GI foods into your meals! Tag us on social media with your meal photos and use #HaemaMeals!

Download Haema Here