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Posts tagged ‘fat’

Bananas Have More Sugar Than Mars Bars

By Chad Upton

If there’s one thing Broken Secrets loves, it’s bananas. The only other subject that we’ve covered as much is the Olympics. That’s because bananas are really interesting, especially when you consider some of the previous posts:

Even if you don’t care about that stuff, they’re still really tasty. But, that flavor comes at a cost: bananas have lot of sugar in them. In fact, a cavendish banana has about 47 grams of sugar in it. To put that into perspective, a mars bar clocks in at less than 37 grams of sugar!

To be fair, bananas have a lot more nutrients than mars bars and a lot less fat t0o.

Bananas have about 6 grams of fiber, 4.7 grams of protein and of course they’re known for their potassium, although they only have about 1 gram of it. The World’s Healthiest Foods website lists bananas as the 29th food with the most potassium per serving — Swiss Chard, Lima Beans and Potatoes are the top three.

Bananas are also a very good source of vitamin B₆.

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Sources: wikipedia (banana), UC South Denmark, Column Five, The World’s Healthiest Foods

November 13, 2013 at 2:00 am Chad Upton 3 comments

Bad Fats Can be Hidden on Nutrition Labels

My good friend Scott is probably the fittest person I know. He works out at least once a day (sometimes more) and eats like a champion.

A little while back, I was in Toronto and staying at Neil’s place (author of The Book of Awesome). Scott came by and took us to the gym for a personal training session. At the end, I was beat and he hadn’t even broken a sweat. Then he said, lets do it again! I thought he was joking, I really did… but he was not.

The point is, Scott is very fit and extremely well read. When I asked him what book I should read to learn more about nutrition, he suggested this book.

I’ve been reading it off and on for a couple weeks now and it’s a great book. I found the section about fats very interesting. Of course, most people realize there are good fats and bad. Fats that your body needs and fats that your body shouldn’t have. But, there was an interesting little trick for identifying fat that is not itemized on the nutritional label. If you look at “total fat”, that number is often higher than the itemized fats listed below it (at least saturated and trans fats must appear itemized in the US since 2006). If you add up the saturated and trans fats and the subtract that from the total, you’ll know the approximate amount of unsaturated fats. The reason I say approximate, is because the trans fat number is regulated to be inaccurate in some cases. (more…)