Bananas; a fruit that is delicious, filled with nutrients, including potassium and fiber, and one of the most consumed fruits in the world—Medical News Today notes that Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. But the bananas we know and love are a yellow color (or green if they are not yet ripe), not blue ...
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But wait ... somewhere in the world blue bananas exist, and they are so beautiful that they would make for the best food post on social media. But there’s more to these Blue Java bananas than a great Instagram snap, and according to HuffPost, they have also earned themselves the nickname of "ice-cream bananas" because they taste just like vanilla ice-cream. The publication notes that they grow in Hawaii (and have grown on the island since the 1920s), and other tropical environments throughout Southeast Asia and Central America.
The Blue Java banana has been making headlines recently because people are fascinated by its frosted appearance and taste. Delish notes that when ripe, “the fruit itself is fluffy and creamy rather than overly mushy and moist,” and tastes great with peanut butter on toast, or frozen and dipped in chocolate. As for how they get their sweet taste? This is explained by the executive director of Hawaii Tropical Fruit Growers, Ken Love.
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"Bananas are usually classified in terms of their chromosomes," he told HuffPost. "Those chromosomes are made up of A — acimnata, the sweetness, and the sugar — or B — balbisiana, the starch." The Blue Java banana is of the ABB genomic group, meaning it has two parts starch and one part sugar, and "the starch converts to sugar when they're fully ripe."
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Like regular bananas, Blue Java bananas also provide a source of potassium and dietary fiber, and contain many vitamins and minerals including Vitamin B-6, Riboflavin, and Magnesium, SparkRecipes reports. The only downside is that they are not readily available in most of our local stores because they are a specialty fruit!
[Lead image via Shutterstock]
