This just occurred to me while eating a disappointingly un-ripe banana. Does the ripening of fruits/vegetables change the nutritional makeup? I know obviously Newton’s first law means that the fruit isn’t gaining anything, but are there conversions happening that change the composition? I just can’t imagine that a beautifully sweet, ripe banana has the exact same nutrition facts as a green one!
In: 6
Yes, the nutritional value of fruits and vegetables can indeed change as they ripen
During the ripening process, some nutrients break down, while others increase in concentration
So, a ripe banana may have different nutrition facts compared to a green one
Enjoy that sweet, ripe banana!
Definitely, but the science gets really complicated. Rule of thumb is when the fruit is at peak flavor the nutrition is also at it’s best but that’s not universal by any means.
(Newton’s first law has absolutely nothing to do with the nutritional value of the fruit, by the way, just about its physical motion and staying put without external forces.)
Chemical reactions in the banana turn the long-chain starches into sugars. I didn’t find much more than that https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/green-bananas-good-or-bad#green-vs-yellow https://www.eatingwell.com/article/7964409/do-bananas-lose-fiber-when-they-ripen/
Nutrition is complicated because it deals with how the body absorbs from the food. Instead of easy to digest sugar, [starch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starch) is long chains of carbohydrate that gets broken down into sugar. The articles I linked talk about glycemic index, which is roughly how fast the sugar gets into the blood. Kind of like if you had to tear a piece of food apart in order to eat it, and you had to chew each bite a lot vs chugging maple syrup.
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