Green Bananas Make Good Gluten-Free Pasta

People currently quaking with fear under the fearsome specter of the great demon gluten may have another option for enjoying the foods the rest of us take for granted, like pasta. Researchers have discovered a new type of flour that might make a less terrible gluten-free pasta, and that flour actually comes from green bananas.

According to The Huffington Post, researchers from the University of Brazil made flour from the green bananas, and then made pasta from that. The gluten-free, green-banana pasta apparently won in taste tests comparing it with whole-wheat pasta, which is definitely not the same thing as passing taste tests against regular pasta, but is still better than nothing. The results of the study were published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

As a bonus, the green banana flour offers banana growers a potential new market for previously unwanted fruit.

"Green bananas are considered a sub-product of low commercial value with little industrial use," said researcher Renata Puppin Zandonadi. "For banana growers and pasta product makers, there is the possibility of diversifying and expanding their market."