Bananito - Solar Dried Banana Bars

One of my most-loved summertime desserts is the famous fruit skewer.  Alternating fresh strawberries, pineapple chunks and banana slices, all drizzled with melted chocolate - heaven.  The only downside?  You can’t pop a chocolate-y skewer in your lunchbox – think of the mess!  But you can make room for your new favourite bar: BANANITO. 

The food revolutionaries over at Mighty Bee have brought the UK our first solar-dried banana bar - all the way from Phitsanulok, Thailand.  These petite Kluai Namwa Lady Finger bananas are grown in a pure environment that is 100% chemical free, and only picked by hand when perfectly ripe.

There are three Bananito bars to choose from: Original & Chewy, Dark Chocolate Dipped, and Dark Chocolate & Almond Crush.  All three are high in fibre, gluten, palm oil and dairy free, vegan and count as one of your five a day – bonus!

Original & Chewy

The first bar is in fact “nothing but 2 bananas!” and weighs in at 40g.  For me, this pack is the least appealing in both look and taste.  To keep the bananas air tight, the wrapper is vacuum sealed around the bananas which unfortunately, gives the look that you’ve forgotten the bar in your back pocket while sitting on the morning train. 

The name is correct though – they certainly are chewy, and without a coating, they’re a little sticky, too.  They have a stronger taste than fresh bananas which is probably why they’re not my favourite.  I prefer to eat bananas green (which I know defeats the point!). 

In colour, the bananas are a dark orange-brown and they don’t smell particularly appetising.

For two bananas, however, the pack only adds up to 128.1kcal – pretty good considering one medium banana straight off the shelf is around 105 calories. 

Dark Chocolate Dipped

This bar is my FAVOURITE!  The banana is soft in contrast to the hard chocolate exterior, and the flavour of the two is balanced perfectly.  The bar has a delightfully sweet smell, too.

Mighty Bee don’t scrimp on the chocolate either – it looks and tastes like there is a lot more chocolate here than the 20% claimed, without leaving you feeling guilty.  At 25g, this chocolate covered finger is only 86 calories but it definitely fills that mid-morning gap.  I’ll sure be adding this bar to my daily snacks.

Dark Chocolate & Almond Crush

I would describe this final bar as your post-gym pick-me-up, the one you worked hard for.  As yummy as the Dark Chocolate Dipped, the crushed almonds coated to the outside give this bar some extra weight, flavour and texture, leaving you feeling like you’ve indulged in something a little naughtier than reality. 

Personally, I find this bar hard to eat!  It’s quite thick and not easy to bite down on with those crunchy almonds protruding from the chocolate – definitely one for your back teeth.

Overall, this last bar is pretty good!

So how do these bars hold so much flavour?  The bananas are placed in a Parabola solar-dome and gradually dried by nature over 1-2 weeks.  This process allows the nutrients within the bananas to remain intact from banana to bar, keeping all of that banana-ry goodness in tip-top-flavour!  Plus, this natural process bypasses all electricity, making the method sustainable, too. 

Our friends over at Mighty Bee are consistently evolving the way we think about food, believing that sustainable and organic agriculture is more than “just a trend – it is the essence of who we are.”  The brand are advocates of Fair Trade and support the local farmers who lovingly grow and expertly harvest their produce.

So the next time you pick up a Bananito bar, remember…

BEE HONEST - BEE CARING - BEE PEACEFUL