9 Awesome Ways to Use Bananas ...

1. Put a Shine on Your Face

Bananas can be mashed to create a sticky mask-like consistency, so one of the ideal ways to use bananas is to add them to your beauty regime. Just like other fruits and vegetables, they’re full of good vitamins to nourish our skin. Mash them up and carefully smooth over your face, leaving for 10-15 minutes before washing off with warm water – your skin will feel fresh, clean and moisturized.

2. Conditioning Superstar

Rather than using slippery oils to condition your hair, try some mashed banana gently mixed to a smooth paste with some water until it’s the consistency of double cream. Comb through dry hair and leave in for 15 minutes or however long is necessary for your hair length and dryness, then rinse out with warm water.

3. Go for Silver with Banana Polish

Sounds sticky and messy? Another of the things to do with bananas is to use them as a polish to add a fab shine to leather and silver pieces. Peel the banana and remove all the fruit and stringy parts, and rub the inside of the peel straight onto silver or leather. Then just wipe over with a cloth or napkin and it will come up a treat. The properties in the banana will enable a shine to glow from all your favourite bags and shoes and silverware!

4. Binding Your Baking

Vegans need good healthy options for replacing animal products in their cooking. Most opt for dried egg replacement made of starches, but an all-natural way to use a banana is instead of eggs. One banana per one egg in the recipe will act as the perfect binder in baking. You can also use mashed banana as a replacement if you’re cutting down on calories.

5. Freeze Them

You can store bananas in the freezer, either blended and mashed or frozen simply as they are whole as a banana popsicle. One of the great things to do with a banana is to use it as a cool treat with none of the calories of ice-cream! Add spices such as cinnamon, or dried fruit, nuts and chocolate pieces to the blended version to spice it up. For the popsicle version insert a wooden stick into the bottom of the banana before freezing. Once ready, you can dip them in your favourite sauce and add toppings galore or just eat as is.

6. Make Food Tender

In Asia, banana leaves are the go-to option for plates, food parcel carrying and cooking. Tasty treats are wrapped in banana leaves and when used during cooking, the leaves hold in the moisture, flavors and juices, ensuring the food is amazingly tasty and nourishing. Banana leaves are hard to come by at home, so try adding a banana to your cooking either mashed and smooth or chopped in pieces to increase moisture.

7. Fertilizer and Compost

The main ingredients in proprietary chemical fertilizers are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Bananas have 358mg of potassium per hundred grams as well as some phosphorous so they make an ideal natural substitute for your garden. The fertilizer part of the banana is the peel, so another of the great things to do with bananas is to keep all your peels somewhere dry so that they become dehydrated, ideally hang them up. When ready (after a few months), blitz them in a blender and dig deep into your flower beds in the spring.

8. Wildlife Attractor

We all like to see birds and butterflies coming back time and time again to our gardens. They bring so much life and activity, so rather than buying seed sticks, fat balls or putting out bread, why not try bananas. Birds and butterflies are just as attracted to bananas and all you need to do is hang them up whole somewhere up high or on a platform.

9. Making Water Safe

Scientists have become creative thinking of ways to use bananas. Miraculously banana peels have been tested and shown to remove pesticides from drinking water in South America. The findings of the study showed banana peels were an efficient and inexpensive way to clear polluted waters. It not one of the things to do with bananas you’ll probably ever use at home, but it’s interesting to know.

I love it when something simple has many uses. Bananas are healthy, useful and versatile – very cool! How many other uses for bananas do you know? Care to share?