I’m told that bananas are good for you. At what point in their life cycles are they the most nutricious? I like the raw ones (still slightly green). The all-yellow ones are OK too, but I can’t stand the spotted ones. But to take maximum advantage of the nutrients, which ones should I be eating?
Don’t eat them when they’re green - it’s like eating a candle.
Don’t try to force yourself to eat black spotted ones, you won’t enjoy them. Cook those dudes banana muffins, banana bread and banana and peanut butter sandwiches (with honey for the adventurous).
Eat the golden ones only.
Good snack: slice banana into coin shapes, squeeze lemon/orange/grapefruit juice over slices, sprinkle on desiccated (note the consecutive c’s) coconut, pour over yoghurt and eat.
but also (in my opinion) maximum enjoyment, I personally
- buy bananas in the yellow stage
- take great care not to bruise them
- store them somewhere not too hot
- wait until they have turned brown (but not black)
They are noticeably sweeter this way.
Bananas have all the nutrients they’re going to have when they’re cut from the “tree.” Ripening converts the starch into sugars, making the banana softer and sweeter, but it doesn’t add any benefits. It’s possible that some nutrients decay as the fruit ripens, but I wouldn’t know. Hell, I can even imagine a pathway by which nutrients might become available as the fruit ripens, but I doubt that it happens.
Before the bananas become overripe, put them in the fridge. This will retard further ripening. They will turn black in the fridge if left long enough, but still taste good even tho black. But don’t wait too long after they start turning black because then they lose their flavor.
Green bananas can take the place of cooking bananas (Plantains, which are bigger and more angular). At the green stage they are simply starchy, rather than sugary. All of the nutrients the plant has put into the fruit will be there at the time of picking. They don’t form after they’re taken off of the plant. Slight brown spotting on bananas is the point where the fruit has its starch converted into as much sugar as will get converted. After that, they tend to ferment a bit and get overpowering and cloying. However blackened or really brown bananas are good in Banana bread.
Some bananas are actually pinkish orange inside rather than creamy white. Some are green and white striped. Some are bluish when ripe (the Ice Cream Banana is one such cultivar, it has flesh so soft and melty it’s been compared to ice cream). Apple bananas are subacid and have hints of apple to them.
Speak for yourself! - In my opinion, bananas are at their peak when the skin is dimpled and black (like the texture of a perfect pancake) - as long as the inside has not started to turn black or translucent.
As to the question of when they are healthiest - it is hard to answer because it is diets, not foods, that are more or less healthy; individual foodstuffs just contain certain proportions of dietary components; cheeseburgers and fries aren’t unhealthy if they are eaten as part of a balanced diet.
I so want to try an Ice Cream Banana 
As mentioned above: use ultra-ripe bananas for things like banana bread. Ultra-unripe bananas can be used to make a kind of chip or french fry: I haven’t managed to try this, but you cut them up and fry them in canola oil (rapeseed oil) for no longer than a minute.
And the easiest banana recipe:
- bananas in their skins
- chocolate buttons (any colour - white, brown, plain)
- tin foil
Make a lengthways split in the banana while still in its skin. Cram in chocolate buttons. Wrap with tin foil. Put on barbecue or in oven. Wait 20 min or so. Eat directly from the banana skin with a spoon. A gooey chocolately bananey fudgey ecstasy awaits.
Bananas are enormously nutrious and delicious, I was disappointed that they did not make this recent list of superfoods.
I prefer bananas when the skin starts to show little black spots. Any earlier and they’re starchy; any later and they’re mush.
The usual variety these days is Cavendish, but I often see different ones in the stores around here, either finger-size “baby bananas” or red-skinned ones, or sometimes plantains.
I read an article recently saying that Cavendish bananas in SE Asia are being infected with a fungal disease that kills the plants. The area has been quarantined, but it’s quite possible that in a few years we might be eating some other variety. It has happened, according to the article. Up to the 1950s, the main variety was one called “Gros Michel”, until it was wiped out by a similar fungus. The original researcher points out that there are lots of local varieties around to be replacements for Cavendish if necessary.