Goin’ Bananas
Bananas are one of the world’s most popular snacks for portion, portability, cost, they’re easy to digest, and packed with potassium, and we’ve been experimenting with bananas for all kinds of other healthy living, beauty, and fun uses.
We eat them fresh, frozen, dehydrated, raw, baked into breads, and more. I use banana on my hair, to soothe an upset tummy, and when nothing else sounds good to eat. I used to experience intense leg cramp and found they significantly improved and mostly disappeared by consuming bananas regularly to boost my potassium level. I have learned to LOVE bananas and eat about 10-12 a week myself!
Bananas are naturally sweet and a healthy, yummy alternative to sugary snacks and desserts.
As a yellow food, bananas support the strengthening of your solar plexus chakra above your belly button.
Banana chips (we use an old, gifted food dehydrator to make them) are even more portable and easy to store for a crunchy, sweet snack, or put crumbled banana chips into your oatmeal with walnuts and it’s like eating your own bowl of banana bread.
Mashed, ripe banana makes an exceptional hair moisturizer. After being offgrid for a few months and finding city water harsh and drying on my hair, a banana hair mask has made a big difference. I thoroughly mash an overly ripe banana and put on the lower half of my hair and leave it in for 20-30 minutes and rinse. Every other month or so, this is a great self-care practice.
Overly ripe bananas as frozen bite-sized treats – peel and break or slice bananas into bite sized chunks and enjoy on a warm day or any time really. Or, puree your overly ripe, peeled bananas and make a vegan ice cream treat. Alternately, you can take a couple of those frozen banana chunks, mix with some cooled coffee, a splash of milk of your choice (dairy or plant-based), and some chocolate and frapee it all for banana mochachino deliciousness.
Freeze overly ripe bananas in the peel to use at a later time for banana bread. When you’re ready to get baking, thaw your bananas in their peels, and squeeze out the banana and it’s naturally sugary goo for some phenomenal banana bread adventures.
Bananas also encourage playfulness.. monkey business. Have you ever pretended a banana was a phone? Banana phone is totally a thing, and makes for all kinds of laughter and silliness. I can tell ya that from personal experience. 😉 Somewhere I have a photo of my bananaphone shenanigan selfies.
Bananas as an educational tool – not just for teaching healthy eating habits and offering healthy snack options, bananas are a great way to demonstrate how to use a condom (obviously, when you’re offspring is old enough) .
As bananas naturally release their own gas, other fruits and veggies tend to ripen faster when near bananas. This is great if you find under ripe avocados at the store and want t
And, all those banana peels? Holy moly, you can compost them, add them to your soil to improve the health of your gardening soil, you can even take a piece of overly ripe banana peel and a few drops of maple syrup and make an effective house gnat trap. Just make sure you take the stickers off before you put them back into the earth.