Is Plantain Good for Diabetes? Unripe vs Ripe

You can eat plantain with diabetes. But the thing almost everybody has been told about it is not true, and it is worth knowing before your next plate.

The advice going round is that unripe plantain is the safe one because it is not sweet.

When researchers here in Nigeria boiled unripe plantain and measured what happened to people's blood afterwards, it came out at 89. That is high.

It is right beside eba, which is 84. The plantain in your pot is not the gentle food you were promised.

Ripe plantain is worse, not better. Boiled ripe plantain measures 96.5, and roasted plantain, the boli sold by the roadside, measures 92.

There is one plantain that is gentle on your sugar, and it is not the one on your plate. It is plantain flour, the kind you turn into amala. That measures 52.8. Same plant, different food, and that difference is where nearly all the confusion in this country comes from.

None of this is your fault, and none of it means plantain is bad. It means the size matters more than you were ever told, and we will go through that number by number.

Does plantain contain sugar?

Yes, though not in the way people mean when they ask.

Plantain is mostly starch. Starch is what your body breaks down into sugar once you have eaten it, so a food does not have to taste sweet to raise your sugar. Unripe plantain is not sweet, and it still raises your sugar quickly. Sweetness was never the test.

Ripening changes it again. As a plantain sits and turns yellow, the starch inside it slowly turns into sugar on its own. That is why a ripe one tastes sweet and a green one does not, and it is why the two behave differently once they reach your blood.

So the question was never whether plantain contains sugar. It does, in every form. The question is how fast that sugar arrives, and that is what was measured.

Is unripe plantain good for diabetes?

Not as good as you were told. It was measured at 89, which is high.

This is the number that surprises people most, so let us be careful with where it came from.

Researchers in the south west of Nigeria fed everyday Nigerian foods to eighty adults and measured their blood sugar afterwards. Boiled unripe plantain came out at 89. Eaten with stew, it moved to 88, which is barely any movement at all.

The score they used is the glycaemic index. It is a number from 0 to 100 that tells you how fast a food turns into sugar in your blood.

Anything from 1 to 55 is slow, and that is where you want to be. From 70 upwards is fast. At 89, boiled unripe plantain sits with the fast ones, next to eba, which we went through on its own at 84.

If you switched to unripe plantain believing it was the safe choice, you were following the best information you had. Plenty of people did the same thing, and many of them are still doing it today.

That does not mean you must give it up. It means unripe plantain is an ordinary starch, like rice and like swallow, and it needs the same three things from you: the right size, something good beside it, and a count you keep to each week. Those numbers are further down.

Is ripe plantain good for diabetes?

It is the fastest of them, so this is the one to be careful with. Boiled ripe plantain measures 96.5.

That follows from what ripening does. The starch has already turned into sugar while the plantain was sitting in your kitchen, so your body has less work to do and the sugar arrives sooner. The sweeter it tastes, the faster it reaches your blood.

Half ripe sits between the two. Nobody has measured it here, so we will not hand you a number we do not have, but the rule holds: the sweeter it has grown, the faster it will go. If you have a choice at the market, the greener one treats you better.

But hold that lightly, because the difference between green and yellow is smaller than the difference between three slices and half a plate. Both of them are high. Choosing the green one helps you. Eating the right size helps you more.

Is plantain flour good for diabetes?

This is the one good piece of news, and it is the part almost nobody separates properly.

Unripe plantain flour meals were measured at 52.8. That is under 55, which puts it among the slow foods. It is the gentlest thing you can make from a plantain.

Drying the plantain and grinding it into flour changes the starch inside it. That is all it takes. The boiled one on your plate and the ball of plantain amala in your soup came off the same bunch, and your blood treats them as two different foods.

So when you read online that unripe plantain is low, and then you read here that it is 89, both numbers are correct. They are not talking about the same food.

One is talking about the flour and one is talking about what you boiled. Nobody ever says which, and that is how a whole country ends up misled about one plantain.

Plantain amala is worth knowing for another reason. When we ranked all 14 Nigerian swallows, it came out on top, gentler than eba, pounded yam, fufu and wheat swallow. If plantain is a food you love, that is where it treats you best.

Is fried plantain (dodo) good for diabetes?

Dodo is the one to keep for special days. Our answer is to skip it where you can, and if you do have it, three to four small slices at most, about 60g, and about once a month.

Now, here is something that trips people up, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a scare. Fried plantain measures 88.8, which is lower than boiled ripe plantain at 96.5. On the number alone, frying looks like it helped.

It did not. Diabetes UK, in their own guide to the score, note that cooking method, ripeness and processing all change a food's number, and that fat lowers it.

The oil sits in your stomach and slows everything down, so the sugar arrives a little later. All of that sugar is still coming. You have only bought yourself a delay, and you paid for it with a lot of oil.

That oil is the reason dodo stays on the special-day list even when its number looks kinder. What it does to your heart, your cholesterol and your blood pressure is a separate bill, and it lands whether your sugar behaves or not. Plantain chips are the same story in a smaller packet, and they are far easier to overeat.

Is roasted plantain (boli) good for diabetes?

Roasted plantain measures 92, so it belongs with the fast ones. Half of one medium unripe plantain is the size to keep to, about two times a week.

Boli has one thing going for it that dodo does not, which is that it is roasted over fire and not sitting in oil. So if you are choosing between the two, boli is the better buy, and it is better still when it is the unripe one and you take it with groundnut or with fish rather than on its own.

How much plantain can a diabetic eat?

About three slices of boiled unripe plantain, which is roughly three-quarters of a cup, about 100g. Two to three slices if it is ripe, about 80g. Around two times a week.

Look at what that means on the plate, because it is smaller than most people serve. Three slices of boiled plantain, and the rest of the plate is vegetables and fish, chicken or egg.

Plantain porridge is one bowl, about one cup of it as cooked, roughly 200g, with plenty of vegetables cooked inside it. Plantain amala is one ball the size of your closed fist, about 100g, and because it is the gentle one you can have it about three times a week.

Beans and plantain deserves its own line, because it is a good Nigerian plate and people worry about it needlessly. The beans are excellent for you. It is the plantain beside them that carries the sugar.

Keep it to half a cup of the cooked beans with two or three slices of plantain, boiled or roasted rather than fried, and you have a meal that treats you well about three times a week.

Every food you eat has a size like this and a count like this, and no one can hold hundreds of them in their head. For the ones you do not see here, you can look them up on GluFloat in a few seconds.

What should you eat plantain with?

Vegetables, and fish, chicken or an egg. But plantain needs an honest warning here that most foods do not.

In that same study of eighty adults, stew moved boiled plantain from 89 to 88. One point. In the very same study, a fried egg moved boiled yam from 94 down to 84, which is ten points. Something beside the food usually helps a lot. With plantain, a stew on its own barely touched it.

So this is a food where the size is doing nearly all the work. Put fish, chicken or an egg on the plate, and put vegetables there too, because they slow your stomach down and they feed the rest of your body.

But do not let a good stew talk you into a bigger serving of plantain. With this one, the stew has not earned you that.

Is plantain good for diabetes and high blood pressure, cholesterol or your kidneys?

Plenty of people are not managing diabetes alone, and almost nobody answers this question for them.

Plantain on its own is kind to the rest of your body. It carries no salt, and it carries no fat. Boiled or roasted, it gives your heart, your pressure and your kidneys nothing to complain about.

The trouble arrives with the oil and the salt we add. Dodo, plantain chips and gizdodo are heavy with oil, and heavy oil is hard on your cholesterol and on your heart even on a day when your sugar is behaving very well.

Salted plantain chips add salt to that, which lifts your blood pressure and gives your kidneys extra work.

So a food that is fine for your sugar is not automatically fine for the rest of you. That is why the foods that are hard on your blood pressure, your heart or your kidneys carry a warning of their own on Glufloat.

If you are managing more than one condition, speak to your doctor or your dietitian about your own case.

Four things people are commonly told about plantain, and the truth behind them

None of these is your fault. They are all repeated in good faith by people who want to help you.

1. You may have been told that unripe plantain is safe because it is not sweet. Sweetness is not the test. Boiled unripe plantain measures 89, and your blood cannot tell that it tasted bland.

2. You may have been told that plantain is a low food, and you may even have seen it written on a trusted health website. Those lists are correct about plantain flour and about plantain as it is eaten elsewhere. They never say which plantain, or how it was cooked, and here that is the whole answer.

3. You may have been told that frying is fine because dodo does not raise sugar much. The oil slowed the sugar down, it did not cancel it, and the oil brings its own bill for your heart.

4. You may have been told to swap rice or swallow for plantain. Boiled plantain at 89 is not a rescue from eba at 84. They are the same kind of food, and the size is what changes your day.

Stop guessing, start using Glufloat

Plantain is one food, and the answer already changes depending on whether it is green or yellow, boiled, roasted, fried, or ground into flour.

Now think about everything else on your table, and how the answer changes again once the whole plate comes together. Three slices of boiled plantain with vegetables and fish is one question. That same plantain fried, beside rice, with a soft drink, is a different question with a different answer.

That is the gap GluFloat was built to close. You type in the food and it tells you where you stand, the size to keep to, and what to eat it with.

Then you put your whole plate together and watch the answer move as you adjust it. You can try it free, and it does not ask for a card, so you can test it on tonight's dinner before you decide anything.

One honest note before you go

Nobody is asking you to give up plantain. Three slices, something good beside it, twice a week, and the green one over the yellow one where you have the choice. That is a small change, and it can start at your very next meal.

Quick answers

Is unripe plantain good for diabetes?

It is not the safe food most people think. Boiled unripe plantain measures 89, which raises your sugar quickly. About three slices, roughly 100g, about two times a week, with vegetables and fish, chicken or an egg.

Is ripe plantain good for diabetes?

Ripe is faster than unripe, not gentler. Boiled ripe plantain measures 96.5. Keep it to two or three slices, about 80g, around two times a week.

Is fried plantain good for diabetes?

Dodo is best kept for special days, about once a month, and three to four small slices at most. Its number looks kind only because the oil delays the sugar, and that oil is hard on your heart and your cholesterol.

Is roasted plantain (boli) good for diabetes?

Roasted plantain measures 92, so it is one of the fast ones. Half of one medium unripe plantain, about two times a week, and take it with groundnut or with fish rather than on its own.

Is plantain flour good for diabetes?

Yes, it is the gentlest form of plantain there is, measured at 52.8. One ball the size of your closed fist, about 100g, and you can have it about three times a week with vegetable soup.

Are plantain chips good for diabetes?

No. They are fried, salty and very easy to overeat. Best to skip them, and if you do have them, about 15 chips, roughly 30g, about once a month.

Is plantain porridge good for diabetes?

It can be a good meal when it is loaded with vegetables and fish. One bowl, about one cup as cooked, roughly 200g, about two times a week.

Is plantain the same as banana?

No. They are different foods and your body treats them differently. Plantain is a starch you cook, and it behaves like one. Banana sits in the middle band, so it is not as fast as boiled plantain.

Is green plantain the same as unripe plantain?

Yes, they are the same thing, and the same number applies to both.