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Carbs in a banana??

Moodle

Active Member
Messages
37
Location
Kent
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
This may well appear a rather student question. But until recently I have been carb counting bananas as 23 per 100g. This info I found online. I have noticed I tend to go low after injection for this. I have since looked up carbs of bananas with skin on (more specific search) and its 6 per 100g. Am I right with this.

Cheers
Nik
 
Hi @Moodle
You were correct (more or less) with 23 gm .. Don't know where you read 6 gm ?? Or how leaving the skin on (yuck) lowers the amount of carbs in your banana .. ??
Hope this helps
 

Your 23g sounds right. I do find that it also depends how ripe the banana is. I ate up a very ripe ine the other day and my BS was higher than I'd have expected. So perhaps that, as well as the variety, has some effect.
 
6g per 100g seems very low. I just did a quick google and found 14g per 100g for carbs in a banana with skin (http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/350164295)
As you do not eat the skin (unless you know about some special goodness that I do not), I would be more tempted to use the carbs for 100g banana without skin (http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/generic-banana-raw-without-skin-100g-442254861?v2=false) and reduce the weight of the banana by the typical weight of the skin which you can work out by weighing a few banana skins.
Another thing worth considering is the fibre. This is often included in the carb values online. However, fibre passes straight through and is not digested.
The URL I quoted above uses 21g for carbs and 2g for fibre. I don't think it is a great surprise that these values add to the same number that you have quoted above (23g)

For example, if you decide a typical banana skin weighs 50g (this is a number I plucked out of thin air and have not measured it), for a 150g banana and we use 21g for the carbs per 100g
Therefore, carbs in your banana are (150-50)*21/100 = 21g

Using 23g carbs, ignoring fibre and including the weight of the skin, you would have calculated 34.5g.

This additional 13.5g carbs that have been calculated may explain the hypos. Although don't forget the 50g for the skin was a guess.

The other thing to consider is the time of day and whether your carb ratio is appropriate: do you often hypo regardless of what you eat at that time of the day?
Or whether your basal dose is too high?
Or if you are eating the banana as a post exercise top-up, you may find the hypo is caused by your exercise.

There are multiple things to consider.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Hi, it depends on the ripeness and the size of the banana too. My diabetes carbs and cals book states :-
weight without skin but same carbs with skin
63 g = 15 carbs
85 g = 20 carbs
128g = 30 carbs
 
I've been working off the Carbs and Cals book and weigh them with skin on and the figures work out at 15.46g~ per 100g weight. As other posts have suggested the ripeness will have a factor also as they got more sweet as they ripen.
 
oh yes you're right! Same here, ok explains that then! Thanks again
 
That looks faulty @Moodle A banana has no fibre??

I'd use another site and get the correct info
 
azure said:
I ate up a very ripe ine the other day and my BS was higher than I'd have expected. So perhaps that, as well as the variety, has some effect.
Click to expand...

Your right about the ripeness @azure , the following article explains that Green or Unripe bananas contain less sugar and more resistant starch:


https://authoritynutrition.com/bananas-diabetes/

I love bananas and have one every day, usually after a main meal or as a snack when out walking.
 
This is one reason why I stopped using My Fitness Pal. There are glaring errors all over the place.
 
No2D said:
think your idea of walking after eating a banana is great since you burn out some of the muscle glucose and make room for more that's coming from the banana. I'll bet that process will help to slightly reduce insulin resistance. What Think???
Click to expand...
Just don't eat the banana and have the walk anyway? win win
 
I rely on Carbs & Cals, plus the Tesco/Sainsburys websites for packaged food, and if all this fails then the manufacturers, distributors or growers websites.

My Fitness Pal is mainly a weight loss site and calorie orientated, and the nutrients are added by users from all over the world with different labelling systems. . The fibre included as per USA/fibre extracted as per UK gets in a mess as most folk don't know the difference. Most users aren't interested in carbs or vits and minerals except maybe salt.
 
My son had the same problem with going low. We now weigh bananas with the skin on and divide by 7 and use that as the carb value and that seems to work pretty well for him.
 
Here's what the Composition of Food Integrated Dataset has about bananas. These data are as about as good as you'll get. (Data are grams per 100 grams)
 
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