Vegan foodies are singing the praises of banana peel bacon as a healthy alternative to the original meat-based variant. Have you discovered another use for banana peels, besides throwing them in the trash? Folks do not realize that banana peels can be as useful and nutritious as the tasty core. All you need to repurpose most of the global food waste is to screen it through the lens of sustainability.
The trend of ditching pork for banana peels has been going viral in recent times. Indeed, multiple banana peel vegan recipes are popping up on the internet.
Sit tight for a low-down on the motivation behind using banana peels for plant-based bacon. Hang around long enough, and you will even learn the how-to of at least one vegan bacon recipe.
Why Banana Peels?
Banana peel is one of those food materials that people find little use for. Interestingly, studies have found that banana peel nutrition does as much good as the fruit itself. Several studies have established the presence of digestible nutrients in banana peels. Besides proteins, fats and carbohydrates, scientists found banana peels to be rich in minerals like sodium, magnesium, calcium, iron and phosphorus.
Health-conscious folks are paying attention to the benefits of their diet now more than ever before. Such people tend to gravitate towards diets that are gluten-free, vegan, fibrous, or contain antioxidants. Interestingly, banana peels tick all these boxes.
In addition, this agricultural waste has just the right texture and structure to hold the flavorful vitality of the marinade. Likewise, regular bacon, made from pork, is touted as fatty, contributing to weight gain and cardiovascular diseases. Similarly, treating pork with nitrite salts during the curing of bacon could result in the formation of nitrosamines. Indeed, all meat products treated with nitrite salts have this tendency, and nitrosamines possess cancer-causing potential. Preparing banana peel bacon helps you sidestep most, if not all, of the highlighted health bottlenecks.
ALSO READ: Beyond the Expiry Date: 7 Ways to Tell If Food Has Gone Bad
Preparation Process of Plant-based Bacon
The preparation of banana peel bacon can be divided into three broad stages. However, the specific steps are likely to vary depending on the recipe you follow. The three stages of the banana plant-based bacon alternative are discussed below:
1. Clean and Prepare the Banana Peel
Cut off the hard stalk at the top and bottom of each banana peel. It is noteworthy that ONLY the peel of ripe bananas is suitable for making plant-based bacon.
You can cut the peel from a single banana into four thin strips. Next, use a spoon to gently scrape out the astringent pulp on the peel’s inside surface.
Rinse the remaining peel portion with potable water and pat dry. Hot soapy water is preferable if the banana to be used is not organic. Once ready, arrange the banana peels in a single layer in a wide bowl or deep tray.
2. Marinate the Peels for Optimum Absorption
You are to use the same marinade ingredients as in regular bacon. The common ingredients for bacon marinade are black or white pepper, salt, spices, maple syrup, and tamari. Whisk all ingredients thoroughly in a clean bowl and apply the resulting marinade lavishly to the cleaned banana peels.
Turn the peels occasionally in the bowl to allow optimum absorption of the marinade.
3. Fry Until Crisp
If you’re particular about reducing the fat in your banana peel bacon to the barest minimum, consider using an air fryer. However, if you’ll be using the oil frying banana peel cooking method, go for a healthy vegetable oil like olive oil.
Preheat the oil at medium heat levels before introducing the marinated banana peels. Turn over the peels intermittently to avoid charring or overcooking on a single side. Make sure your plant-based bacon alternative is crisp enough before removing it from the pan.
Flavor Chemistry of Banana Peel Bacon
Connoisseurs of plant-based bacon alternatives found that the banana peel recipes taste as good as the real deal. Finding ways to incorporate the smoky flavor makes the banana peel bacon mimic the savory profile of the pork variant. This can be achieved by adding liquid smoke to the marinade mix. Most banana peel vegan recipes use smoked paprika for this purpose.
While banana peels do not have a natural meaty flavor, the cooking method can effectively induce it in the vegan bacon. Close monitoring of the marinated banana peels during frying can leave a desirable browning effect through the Maillard reaction. There you have your crispy and meaty vegan bacon.
Environmental and Ethical Impact of Vegan Bacon
The sustainable cooking hacks that birthed the banana peel bacon innovation are examples of home waste valorization. If every consumer, domestic and industrial, of bananas makes use of the whole banana fruit, it becomes a subtle way of reducing global waste. Interestingly, bananas are common in virtually every continent and are traded globally.
Banana peel cooking and its dietary utilization have about the same benefits as plant-based meat. The environment is relieved from the burden of several annual tons of banana peel waste. In addition, the animal cruelty involved in pork production is eliminated, or so we think.
While the average vegan would love that last submission to be true, it would indeed improve the Earth’s ecosystem if pig slaughtering were brought to an end. However, pig parts that are used for bacon production are less than 20% of the total carcass weight. So, there’s still the question of finding sustainable alternatives for the other consumers of the remaining 80% portion of pork cuts.
ALSO READ: Keurig Dr Pepper Strikes $18 Billion Deal to Acquire JDE Peet’s, Creating New Global Coffee Giant
Potential Health Considerations
The banana peel bacon idea is unquestionably brilliant; however, it has a few cons. One, the risk of exposure to pesticides, well, except you decide to use organically grown bananas only. No amount of scrubbing or cleaning can eliminate all the pesticide residues in peels from non-organic bananas.
Also, it would be outright irrational to infer that banana peel bacon can nutritionally replace the pork variant. Take the protein content, for example. Pork protein content averages 25 – 30% for a 100 g meat cut, while ripe banana peels average 1 – 2% of the same weight. Looking on the brighter side, banana peel bacon shows that a sustainable lifestyle is possible with intentional effort.
The very idea of making vegan bacon from banana peels is exciting. Try out the recipe with the spice blend that works best for you, and let us know how it tasted.
Banana vegan bacon proves that sometimes the best recipes come from where you least expect them, your compost bin.
