Bananas are cheap, always available, and easy to eat. They can be used in a wide variety of recipes or just peeled and eaten on the spot. But you might be wondering – are bananas a good source of fiber?
Let’s dive into it…
Quick Answer: Bananas are a decent source of fiber with one medium ripe banana providing 3g of fiber and 110 calories. Compared to other foods, you’re getting a good amount of fiber without too many calories.
For some context, if you wanted to get 30g per day of fiber from bananas, you’d have to eat 10 of them. This would mean eating 1100 calories of bananas in a single day. That said, bananas should be incorporated into a high fiber diet, but probably cannot be the primary source.
Compared to other foods, bananas fall somewhere in the middle in terms of their fiber per calorie content.
Let’s take a look at some examples:
Comparing Fiber in Bananas to Similar Foods
Remember that bananas have 3g of fiber per 100 calories…
- Compare this to raspberries which have 8g of fiber per 65 calories (1 cup of raspberries). This makes raspberries a much better source of fiber than bananas.
- Blueberries have 3.6g of fiber per 85 calories. This makes blueberries a little bit better of a fiber source compared to bananas.
- Oatmeal has around 4g of fiber per 158 calories (when cooked). This makes it very similar to a fiber source to bananas.
- Blackberries have around 8g of fiber per 63 calories. This makes blackberries a much better source of fiber than bananas.
How Much Fiber Bananas Contain by Quantity
- Bananas have 2.6 grams of fiber and 89 calories per 100 grams.
- Bananas have 0.74g of fiber and 25.23 calories per oz.
- 1 Extra large banana has 135.28 calories and 3.95 grams of fiber.
Wrap Up
Bananas are a decent source of fiber, but there are many other fruits that give you more fiber for fewer calories. Bananas make a healthy addition to a fiber-rich diet, but if you’re trying to eat less calories and trying to get more fiber you may want to eat more of the other options such as blackberries and raspberries and fewer bananas.
Hey, I’m Joey. I’ve been cooking since I was a little kid and love everything about it. You can find my writing about food, kitchen appliances (such as blenders) and much more. Thanks for stopping by!
