Did you know besides of being delicious, bananas are also very healthy? First of all bananas, help fight depression due to high levels of tryptophan, which is used in serotonin production – the happy-mood brain neurotransmitter. Bananas regulate blood sugar and produces stress-relieving relaxation. They are are high in potassium, low in salt and as the FDA says, they are able to lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke.
Bananas are rich in pectin, thanks to that they aid digestion and remove toxins and heavy metal from the body. Bananas also contain powerful antioxidants including dopamine and catechins, which have been linked to many health benefits, such as a reduced risk of heart disease and degenerative diseases. A banana can even help you lose weight – a banana has only around 105 calories, and consists almost exclusively of water and carbs. Bananas contain very little protein and almost no fat!
Bananas are so good that it’s hard to think of anything negative. But if you make an effort it’s possible to find one bad trait of the banana fruit – they ripen too fast. You leave them for one day – they are okay, one day more – they are okay, and when you just want to eat them they are overripe. So how can you enjoy healthy benefits of bananas, their fantastic flavor and still don’t have problem with their tendency to ripen quickly?
There is a solution and it’s a perfect solution. Instead of eating bananas you can enjoy banana chips. Chips are healthy and nutritious, and they don’t expire as fast. Typically we don’t associate the word ‘chips’ with healthy, and you may be right when it comes to factory-made chips like in the process shown below:
As we can see the chips bought in the market were previously prepared in a industrial fashion in a factory, where they were fried in palm oil. That will be true about most of the supermarket products – we don’t have any control over their production process and that implies that we can’t be sure if they are healthy.
But that is not the case about homemade products. We can enjoy healthy and delicious homemade dried banana chips. Here we will show you the simple and pleasant way of making your own dried banana chips:
You’ll need:
- 2-3 just ripe bananas
- lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 180-200ºF. Slice bananas into thin slices. Put them on a single layer of baking sheet and brush with lemon juice. Bake until bananas have dried out – from 2 to 3 hours. Test after an hour if you’re satisfied with the consistency, if not – continue baking. Chips are done when they have darker color – from dark gold to brown and have no visible moisture. Remove them from the oven and let cool to a crisp. Done!
So now when you know how to make banana chips, don’t limit yourself to just this fruit. You can also try sweet potato, spinach chips with garlic, apple chips with cinnamon, beet chips with yogurt dip or zucchini chips sprinkled with lemon. The possibilities are endless! Enjoy.
