Waste To Wealth: Banana Flowers

BANANA FLOWERS CONTAIN MANY BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS HAVING ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITIES WHICH HAVE BEEN VERY EFFECTIVE IN TREATING INFECTION CONDITION IN HUMANS. BANANA FLOWER’S BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS EXTRACT EXHIBITED ANTIBACTERIAL PROPERTIES AGAINST BACTERIA

- Pooja Jha, Ritika and Murlidhar Meghwal

INTRODUCTION

Banana is the most common and widely consumed fruit in the world. It possesses delicious sensory characteristics, nutritional and potential health benefits. Under the monetary value, banana ranked fourth among the world’s most important crops after rice, wheat and maize. Banana belongs to the herbaceous and perennial crop of the Musaceae family. Its leaves behave as a stem and because of this it also called a pseudo stem plant. Presently, Banana is cultivated in warm tropical area between 30 degree from both north and south of the equator.

Banana is an extensively cultivated plant in the world, mainly for its fruit. While harvesting plant for its fruit banana, other parts of plant like leaves, flowers, thrown as waste. These wastes turn in into lignocellulosic biomass. There would be 2 scenarios with lignocellulosic biomass, either it left on the ground or taken to open dump but in both cases the risk of transmission of disease and production of greenhouse gases are high.

To reduce the wastage we can use whole banana plant in many ways. The banana tree known as kalpavruksha, since ancient times; every part of the tree can be utilized for our benefit such as fruits are eaten, leaves are utilized as plates and, pseudostem and flower as functional food due to its high nutrient content.

The flower is widely known as Banana blossom or Banana heart. Banana blossom has the potential to be called as a super-food attributed by its high nutrient content such as fibre, protein, vitamin A,C and E, minerals like phosphorus, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium and antioxidants.