Would you eat pasta made from green bananas?

HAVE you put on a few unwanted pounds over the summer? It might sound a bit bananas, but if you want to lose weight and control your appetite, pasta and cakes made with green banana flour might be the way to go.

Made from dried, milled unripe bananas, this gluten-free healthy flour tastes slightly nutty rather than banana flavoured.

It contains high levels of resistant starch, a type of fibre that helps to keep us feeling fuller for longer, helping to curb your appetite.

Treat yourself to SuperSeed green banana penne pasta (£12.30 for three 250g packs) or Natural Evolution Foods green banana smoothie mix (£11.99/240g, yumbles.com).

Natural Evolution green banana baking flour (£6.99/250g, theprebiotic

shop.uk) can be used instead of plain flour in most recipes. Just reduce quantity by 25 to 40 per cent to avoid a heavy, dry texture.

Ayela Spiro, senior nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, says: ‘There’s no doubt dietary fibre — such as the resistant starch found in green banana flour — is part of a healthy balanced diet.

‘However, while there is some interesting emerging evidence, the health benefits of this type of fibre is still unclear.’