Bananas and milk is a common combination often featured in smoothies and shakes.

However, despite the popularity of this pairing, many believe that bananas and milk may not quite be a match made in heaven.

In fact, the internet is flooded with claims that consuming bananas and milk together can damage digestive health, cause congestion, and wreak havoc on your waistline.

This article takes an in-depth look at whether eating bananas with milk is healthy.

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Benefits

There are several potential benefits of consuming bananas and milk together.

Highly nutritious

Both bananas and milk are rich in several important nutrients.

For example, milk is a great source of protein, potassium, B vitamins, and phosphorus (1).

It’s also rich in calcium, an essential mineral that plays a key role in bone health, muscle contractions, nerve function, and more (2).

Meanwhile, bananas are loaded with fiber, manganese, potassium, and vitamin B6 (3).

Like other fruits, bananas are high in vitamin C, a water-soluble vitamin that doubles as an antioxidant to protect against cell damage (4).

Enjoying bananas and milk together can help squeeze more nutrients into your diet and boost your intake of several vitamins and minerals.

Promotes post-workout recovery

What you eat after working out is incredibly important. In fact, filling up on the right foods can fuel muscle growth, enhance performance, and speed recovery.

For example, eating a good amount of protein after exercise can help repair tissues and promote muscle synthesis (5).

Consuming carbs can also rebuild glycogen stores in your muscles, which may have been broken down for fuel during your workout (6).

Milk, in particular, is often recommended as a post-workout snack due to its content of high quality proteins like whey and casein (7).

Bananas are also a great option that can help provide carbs to replace glycogen stores in your muscles (8).

For best results, try pairing milk and bananas in a post-workout smoothie for a simple way to bump up your intake of both protein and carbs.

summary

Bananas and milk are both rich in a number of important nutrients. They can also be combined and enjoyed as a healthy, post-workout snack to promote muscle growth and enhance recovery.

Potential downsides

Despite the possible benefits of pairing milk with bananas, there are a few potential downsides of this common combination.

May contribute to weight gain

Though milk and bananas are both very nutritious, they each provide a moderate number of calories in each serving.

For instance, one medium banana has 105 calories (3).

Similarly, 1 cup (237 mL) of whole milk packs 149 calories (1).

While both ingredients are fine in moderation, enjoying multiple servings of bananas and milk each day can cause your calorie intake to start stacking up quickly.

Without making other adjustments to your diet, this may contribute to increased weight gain over time (9).

May be incompatible

Based on Ayurvedic food principles, bananas and milk are two ingredients that are considered incompatible.

Ayurveda is a holistic form of medicine that’s focused on balancing several forms of energy within your body to promote better health (10).

According to Ayurveda, eating bananas and milk together can diminish agni, or fire, which is the entity responsible for the digestion and metabolism of foods (11).

Consuming bananas and milk is also anecdotally claimed to contribute to sinus congestion and increase the production of toxins in your body.

However, while some research suggests that an Ayurvedic diet may be beneficial for weight management, there’s little research on how it may affect other aspects of health (12, 13).

Furthermore, there’s also no evidence to suggest that combining foods, such as bananas and milk, can interfere with digestion or be harmful to health in any way.

summary

Though bananas and milk are fine in moderation, eating multiple servings without adjusting your diet may cause weight gain. According to Ayurveda, bananas and milk are considered incompatible, though there’s no research to support this.

The bottom line

Bananas and milk are both tasty and rich in important nutrients.

Though bananas and milk are considered incompatible according to Ayurveda, there’s no research to support the claim that they harm your health or digestion.

Therefore, these two nutritious ingredients can be safely enjoyed in moderation as part of a healthy, well-rounded diet.