Frying ripe plantains gives them a caramel-like taste that many people enjoy; most times, this plantain is mixed beans cooked with palm kernel oil.
This conversation has been going on online for quite a while now about whether beans and ripe plantains are healthy.
Kemi Lopsam, a natural health doctor and an acupuncturist based in Akure, first spoke about this in 2019 on a website called Newsroom. Lopsam makes a distinction between ripe and unripe plantain. According to her, "cooking food like beans with unripe plantains has no problems. It is a perfect combination that makes digestion easy." But cooking beans with ripe plantain is unhealthy.
The combination is acidic
Ripe plantains are fruits. Because they are fruits, she explained that heat turns fructose into acid, and many diseases stem from acidity.
Beans are naturally acid-forming too, but they help to create a great PH balance of acid and alkaline in the body.
The problem comes from the combination of the two of them, acid-forming foods are unhealthy and dangerous and can cause heart problems, ulcers, and gastrointestinal reflux.
It doesn’t digest properly together
She states that beans take five to seven hours to digest and leave the stomach, while ripe plantains take just three hours. Lopsam stated falsely that fruits (plantain) digests in the terminal ileum and not the stomach. While foods (beans) get digested in the stomach.
However, Lopsam might be wrong in her assertion about where fruits and food are digested, as both are digested in the small intestine.
She advises that plantains shouldn’t be cooked but eaten raw.
The combination of beans and plantain are both highly acidic and might cause severe stomach upset when eaten together.
Bad oil makes fried plantains unhealthy
According to Healthline, "fried plantains aren't exactly a healthy choice if fried in unhealthy oil." So your plantains are only as good as the oil used to make them.
Plantain chips have high calories and fat
Per the United States Department of Agriculture, plantain chips are rich in calories, fat, and carbohydrates. This high-calorie count can lead to weight gain and other health issues like hypertension.