Bananas are a fantastic food for athletes as they are easy to digest and can be eaten just before exercise to help fuel the muscles. However, they also have some other properties that can help you lose weight. But you have to eat them before they get ripe.

Green bananas contain resistant starches that actually help you to reduce cholesterol levels and lose weight. These banana starches actually cause the body to change the order in which it burns food for energy.

Normally when you eat, carbohydrates are utilized first for energy. But the resistant starches in green bananas causes dietary fat to be burned first, before it has a chance to be stored as fat.

The discovery was made by researchers at the University of Colorado in 2004.

A word of warning – some people do suffer from an upset stomach after eating green bananas.