Money from Banana Peels

The peels of bananas are usually thrown away after the fruit inside is eaten. That is because banana peels are usually thick, fibrous and has a bitter taste. But they can be useful. They can be blended into a smoothie. They can also be boiled, fried, baked and then eaten.

Banana Peels Can be Delicious and Nutritious

The riper the banana the thinner and sweeter the peel becomes. It also turns the colour of the peel to dark brown This is because of the natural plant hormone called “Ethylene” that fruits release as they ripen.

Banana peels are nutritious too. It contains high amounts of vitamin B6 and B12 as well as magnesium and potassium. It also contains some fiber and protein.

Uses of Banana Peels

Most people buy only personal quantities of banana for their daily use and the amount of banana peels as leftovers are usually in small quantities that they are only ideal for personal use. Solopreneurs can however collect the banana peels from restaurants or banana vendors where they are used in commercial quantities.

Enterprising people and even households can collect their banana peels and let them dry out to be uses as a compost or fertiliser. Imagine if you collect your banana peels and then make them into compost and fertiliser and then sell them all at the end of the year. The cumulative annual value of your banana peel might be an addition to your year end budget.

Banana Peels as Food

You can make banana peel vinegar. Simply add banana peels to vinegar and let it ferment. I have never tasted it but articles online suggested that it is tangy with a fruity taste. A solopreneur can taste which particular foods it goes with and then market it appropriately just like any other gourmet seasoning.

The best beneficiaries of banana peels are the people who already sell bananas as a dish. An example of how they can use the banana peels are as follows:

Breakfast: Banana peel tea, cakes and cookies mixed with banana peels.

Lunch: Meals garnished with banana peels and banana peel juice or smoothie.

Snack: Banana peel chips or Baked banana peels and banana peel tea, juice or smoothie.

Dinner: Meals garnished with banana peels and banana peel tea, juice or smoothie. Topped with Banana peel pickle.

For the actual banana peel dishes you can simply Google “banana peel dishes” and this would give you an idea of what kinds of dishes are possible with it.

Banana Peels as Animal Food

You can safely feed pigs with banana peels and in fact there are many pig farmers who include banana peels in their pig’s diet. If you Google “banana peels as pig food you will come across many articles about how farmers are feeding pigs with banana peels. There are however articles that inform that you should not feed your pig with an entirely banana peel diet.

There is an article from feedipedia.org which advises that you should have only a 20% banana peel content in your pig’s diet otherwise it would affect their nutrition. There are also articles that advise that you should not feed your pigs unprepared banana peels which might choke them if they eat them in their current form.

They advise close supervision of pigs when they are eating banana peels just in case they choke. The best preparation is to prepare banana peels such that they are easy to chew and would not choke the pigs which could mean such things as cutting them in smaller pieces or feeding pigs in smaller quantities and mixing them with other foods as well.

Just like pigs other farm animals can eat banana peels. Some of these animals are chicken, cow, sheep, goat, rabbit and horse. For those still using carabaos (small water buffalo) in their farms the answer is YES. Even carabaos eat banana peels. This means that if you have a farm your banana peels will not go to waste even if you don’t eat them yourself because your animals can and will eat them.

Banana Peels as Energy Source

They are also being used for biofuels and biomass. There are plenty of articles online about this topic. For example if you Google “banana peel as energy” you would come across articles that inform you that banana peels are being used to generate electricity. There are also altogether different articles that inform us how banana peels are being used to generate fuel and coal briquettes among others. The articles are just to many to be cited in this short article.

Banana Peel Sources

I have enumerated how banana peels can be used as human and animal food as well as a source of energy but upon searching online for organisations that produce a lot of banana peels I failed to find even one. Therefore anyone who is interested in finding a good source of banana peels should look for businesses even small ones that produce banana peels.

This perhaps is the greatest challenge for anyone trying to use banana peels on a large scale as there seems to be no businesses that produce them on a mass scale. You can try sourcing them from households but this could be an insurmountable logistical operation and most households either just use them or throw them in the garbage bin. Either way you cannot use them.

Conclusion

Banana peels have a lot of uses but unless you already use banana on a big scale basis by yourself then sourcing them reliably would be next to impossible unless you find sources first. Even these sources might not be enough to fulfil your business needs. Therefore banana peels are more of a side business or product to banana.