Is Banana Bread Healthy?

While many proud homes have their own specific recipes, banana bread is a baked good that typically contains bananas, flour, butter or oil, eggs, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, vanilla, and cinnamon. Ingredients like these make up a traditional banana bread recipe.

As with most baked goods, recipes for banana bread vary. Some call for different ingredients.

For example, you can find thousands of banana bread recipes online to suit vegan, paleo, and low carb diets. As such, this dish can be adapted to satisfy many dietary and nutrition needs.

The nutrition of banana bread varies depending on the ingredients used. It can be as healthy or as rich as you please.

Most traditional banana bread recipes make a delicious dessert that’s high in carbs, added sugar, and fat.

Here is the nutrition breakdown for a 3.5-ounce (100-gram) slice of store-bought banana bread made with bananas, wheat flour, sugar, eggs, canola oil, baking soda, salt, and baking powder (1):

• Calories: 421
• Fat: 15.8 grams
• Carbs: 68.4 grams
• Protein: 5.3 grams
• Fiber: 1.8 grams
• Sugar: 42.1 grams
• Sodium: 298 mg

As you can see, this traditional banana bread is high in calories, carbs, and added sugar and low in protein and fiber.

Even though some banana breads are high in sugar, fat, and overall calories, most banana breads serve as a good source of key vitamins and minerals.

For example, bananas are rich in potassium and vitamin B6. Banana bread made with these fruits contains a good amount of these nutrients. One 4-ounce (115-gram) banana provides 8% and 14% of the Daily Value (DV) for potassium and B6, respectively (2).

Moreover, if you make your banana bread with enriched flour, it will contain iron, as well as B vitamins like riboflavin, niacin, and folic acid — the synthetic form of folate (3).

The vitamin and mineral content of banana bread depends on the ingredients you choose.

For example, a loaf of banana bread made with almond flour will be much higher in magnesium and calcium than one made with white flour (4, 5).

Keep in mind that ingredients used in some recipes and store-bought varieties, including chocolate chips, peanut butter, and caramel, may significantly increase the calorie, sugar, and fat contents.

Summary

Traditional banana breads are made with ingredients such as white flour, sugar, and oil. As such, this dish is often high in calories, carbs, and added sugar. However, the nutrition content may vary depending on the ingredients used.

You can certainly include banana bread in a healthy diet, but this dish should be considered a dessert.

Keep in mind that not all foods are created to be healthy. For example, cakes, ice cream, and sweet breads aren’t meant to be the most nutritious foods you can eat.

Desserts may not be a part of your everyday diet. Instead, they are meant to be enjoyed as an occasional treat.

If you eat sweet desserts, such as banana bread, too frequently, you may experience health issues — especially if the rest of your diet relies on ultra-processed, nutrient-poor foods.

For example, diets high in ultra-processed foods such as commercially prepared baked goods have been associated with weight gain and an increased risk of conditions like heart disease and type 2 diabetes (6, 7, 8).

Therefore, you should prioritize more-nutritious foods over banana bread whenever possible. Even though banana bread contains some important nutrients, such as potassium, most varieties remain high in added sugar, refined carbs, and overall calories.

Can you make banana bread healthier?

By swapping a few key ingredients, you can boost the nutritional content of banana bread.

To give you an idea of how much the nutritional content of banana bread can vary based on the ingredients used, here’s the nutritional breakdown for a 3.5-ounce (100-gram) serving of Base Culture Sweet Banana Bread, as compared to a typical store-bought variety (9).

This paleo banana bread is made with bananas, honey, eggs, cashew and almond flours, coconut oil, flaxseed meal, vanilla, baking soda, and sea salt.

Because of these ingredients, the Base Culture banana bread is much lower in carbs and sugar and higher in protein, fiber, and fat than a typical store-bought brand.

Because it’s higher in nutrients such as protein and fiber and lower in refined carbs and added sugar, this banana bread would be more filling and have less of an effect on blood sugar and insulin levels than traditional banana bread (10).

To make a more nutritious banana bread at home, instead of using refined white flour, you could use nut flours, coconut flour, oat flour, or whole wheat flour to increase the fiber and protein content of your banana bread (4, 11, 12).

Adding ingredients such as flaxseed and chia seeds can boost fiber content.

You can also cut back on the amount of added sugar in your banana bread by using more bananas or subbing in some applesauce as your sweetener.

In addition, using a sugar substitute such as monk fruit or erythritol in place of sweeteners like sugar and honey can reduce the carb content of your dessert.

Applesauce can also replace fats such as butter and oil if you’re interested in reducing the fat and calorie content.

Just keep in mind that these ingredient substitutions will change the taste and texture of your banana bread. The finished product won’t taste the same as more-traditional banana breads.

Summary

The nutrition of banana bread varies depending on the ingredients. There are many ways to make banana bread more nutritious, but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying traditional banana bread on occasion.

If you’re a banana bread lover looking for a recipe that’s higher in fiber, protein, vitamins, and minerals than traditional banana bread, you can try these recipes.

Whether you’re following a gluten-free, paleo, vegan, or low carb diet, there’s a perfect banana bread recipe for you.

Gluten-free banana bread recipes

• 1-Bowl Gluten-Free Banana Bread: This recipe calls for oats, almond meal, and a gluten-free flour blend. The best part is that it requires only one bowl!
• Gluten-Free Banana Bread: This gluten-free banana bread is made with almond flour, which is rich in fiber, protein, magnesium, and calcium.

Paleo-friendly banana bread recipes

• Paleo Chocolate Chip Coconut Flour Banana Bread: If you’re a chocolate lover, then you may enjoy this banana bread, which is made with high fiber, high protein coconut flour and sweetened with only mashed bananas.
• Paleo Banana Bread: This moist banana bread recipe requires almond and tapioca flours. You sweeten this banana bread with a small touch of honey.

Vegan banana bread recipes

• No-Sugar-Added Vegan Banana Bread: Sweetened with dates, applesauce, and bananas, this vegan-friendly banana bread contains no eggs or dairy.
• Vegan Banana Bread: This low sugar vegan banana bread recipe includes fiber-rich flaxseed and walnuts.

How to make banana bread lower in carbs

Keto-friendly low carb banana breads are typically made with banana extract, not real bananas. This is because bananas are naturally high in carbs.

If you search online for keto-friendly banana breads, you’re not going to find bread made with real bananas.

Just one 4-ounce (115-gram) banana contains 26.4 grams of carbs (2).

Though this may not be problematic for most people, some people on ketogenic diets choose to keep their carb intake below 20 grams per day in order to maintain ketosis.

In general, nutritionists recommend keeping carb intake at 20–50 grams per day on the keto diet (13).

A slice of banana bread — even one made with low carb ingredients like almond or coconut flour — can quickly exceed that carb limit (1, 9).

For this reason, people following low carb diets such as the ketogenic diet may recognize that most banana breads won’t fit into their diet unless they opt to keep the portion size small and their total carb count below 50 grams.

However, those following more moderate low carb diets can lower the total carb count of banana bread by using low carb flours like coconut and almond flour, as well as reducing the amount of banana used.

Summary

No matter what dietary pattern you follow, you have a variety of banana bread recipes to peruse. You can make banana bread lower in carbs by using low carb flours such as almond and coconut and reducing the amount of added sugar in the recipe.

You may find banana bread delicious, but conventional banana breads tend to be high in added sugar, refined carbs, and calories.

Thus, it’s best to enjoy banana bread occasionally as part of a balanced, nutrient-dense diet.

If you’d like to boost the nutrient density of your banana bread, try adding ingredients high in fiber, protein, vitamins, and minerals, such as nut flours and flaxseed. Cut back on added sugar by replacing sugar with fruit or a zero-calorie sweetener such as monk fruit.