Plantain [Dodo]: A Good Option If You Have To Fry

Plantain is a great food and almost every Nigerian loves fried plantain, the one we all call ‘dodo’. It is not recommended that you fry your plantain, but if you have to fry it choose a good way of doing it.

Plantain is rich in nutrients and a good source of potassium.

Most importantly, potassium is one of the most important minerals in your body.

It helps regulate fluid balance, muscle contractions and nerve signals. Having it in your diet may help reduce blood pressure and water retention.

It may protect against stroke and prevent osteoporosis and kidney stone.

Plantain also contains antioxidants that fight free radicals, contains good levels of vitamin C that supports your immune system.

Also, it has vitamin B6 content that may reduce cardiovascular risk and improve mood (1) .

While the unripe plantain is considered more nutritious, we often want to eat our rice with, dodo.

Often, nutritionists recommend that you should eat unripe plantain more. But we know that will not go down with rice at all.

However, to maximise the nutrients in your ripe plantain there is a right way to fry it.

Here are the things to consider before you fry and after you fry your plantain.

1.      The Oil You Fry Plantain With

Ensuring that your dodo does not give you health issues, begins with the kind of oil you fry it with. When buying your oil in the market, always read the label to see how high the cholesterol is.

Consider the fat content, especially trans fat which is the very unhealthy fat that increases cholesterol in the arteries.

Always go for the oil on the shelf with lowest level of cholesterol and fat.

This way you will ensure that the amount of fat that comes into your system when you eat your dodo is low.

You know that you live more of a sedentary lifestyle and this should require that you reduce oil consumption.

2.      Watch Salt Intake

Unfortunately, plantain is one way that people get excess salt to their body. Majority of the persons who eat dodo add salt to it before they fry it.

My dear dodo lover, plantain is naturally sweet and you do not need to add salt to it. Adding salt is often a function of habit and not because it gives it taste.

Your mother used to fry it that way and you just copied.

Learn to fry your dodo without salt to help your heart function better. You are getting older and do not need so much salt in your system.

3.      How You Fry Dodo

How you fry your dodo really matters a lot in how much it contributes to your health – negatively or positively.

We have seen people use plenty of oil to fry their dodo and this gives the plantain enough oil to suck-in.

Basically, we recommend that you fry your plantain with very little oil in your frying pan.

Ensure that the oil does not cover the dodo. This way the plantain will not suck-in much oil and load your body with trans fat.

4.      Use Low Heat

From studies, high heat often destroys the nutrients in our food items. As a result, it is important that you fry your plantain with low heat.

If not you will load your body with much fat while you get little or nothing from the plantain.

With low heat, the plantain is cooked while the nutrients are largely preserved.

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Furthermore, low heat prevents the oil from getting to the smoking point where it becomes carcinogenic.

When oil gets to smoking point, there is a reaction that releases chemicals.

This is one reason you should fry on low heat.

5.      Extract The Oil

Also, here is the final stage of preparing your dodo for consumption. Basically, there is the need to ensure that the oil form the dodo is not much to reduce what goes into your system.

The best thing to do here is to place a serviette on your sieve and place the dodo on it as you remove it from the frying pan.

The serviette will soak out the oil and ensure little oil is left in the dodo.

It is important you practise this each time you fry your food items.

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