Committing to a diet of kale and quinoa isn’t the only way to get your figure looking trim by the time you don’t need to layer your sweaters before going outside again. New innovations in the health-food space are making clean eating—and more importantly, not giving up your sweet tooth—easy and, believe it or not, delicious. The latest to catch our attention: banana brittle.
No, it’s not drizzled with caramelized sugar or made with a chocolate base like the name suggests; instead, the heart of the sweet and crunchy treat is actually bananas (they’re listed on the label!). “Here, whole fruit is replacing ingredients that have little to no nutritional value,” says Caue Suplicy, founder of Barnana, the only company to introduce banana brittle to market so far with its Organic Crunchy Banana Brittle ($5). A prime example: Instead of wheat flour, banana is used, which Suplicy says provides a big uptick in vitamins in minerals (not to mention, less carbs) such as magnesium.
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Aside from a cleaner ingredient panel and being made with “upcycled bananas” (more on that later), Barnana also prides itself on being organic, gluten-free, vegan and non-GMO, but you wouldn’t guess it when you try it. The crunchy, thinly baked banana crisps are available in flavors like Chocolate, Gingersnap, Coconut and Peanut Butter, and will only set you back around 150 calories for seven pieces. And, best of all, it keeps you full and energized—the brand even pegs bananas as “mother nature’s original energy bar.”
But there’s even more to this guiltless snack than what you’ll find on its nutrition facts. With minimizing food waste as the mission behind the brand, Suplicy explains that the bananas we see in our grocery stores are only the perfect and unscuffed ones. Switching gears back to “upcycling,” 50 percent of all bananas get thrown away at farm level, he says, meaning that only a small portion of farmers’ crops are even profitable. But this all changed when Barnana was founded.
By using every part of “ugly bananas” that are unable to be exported from South America (the peels are even used as a source of energy to power the ovens), Barnana saved almost 16 million bananas from going to waste in 2017, and it’s just getting started. So whether it has to do with your conscious or your waistline, banana brittle has a way of making you feel good.
