FRUIT FRIDAY: 10 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT BANANAS

1. The banana tree is not a tree. It's just a huge sneaky herb posing as a tree. A huge herb. Trying to be a palm tree.

2. Bananas as we know them are a human invention from like, 5000 B.C. Because people are picky eaters and don't like seeds.

OMG! I know, how freakish! It's a wild banana.Ew.

3. The banana tree or herb bears fruit once and then dies. Luckily, it shoots a new "eye" (a baby plant) before dying. This cycle lasts for about ten years, and then that particular organism dies.

4. Bananas could be extinct! Because of the two items above (man-made seedless fruit, herb thing), plus the plantation type of agriculture (lack of variety = genetic weakness) the super popular Cavendish bananas are constantly at risk. One aggressive bug or disease, and bananas would be extinct. In fact, the Cavendish banana we eat nowadays —which is at high risk of extinction— is a replacement for the virtually identical banana Gros Michel that went the way of the dodo in the 1960s.

Looks appetizing to you?

5. You need nuclear science to extract juice from bananas. It's awfully hard to extract juice from bananas, even though they're 80% water. Have you ever tried squeezing one? Their molecular structure is just not very squeezable. The currently available banana juice is blended banana, not squeezed banana. Which is obviously cheating. But for some reason, Indian atomic scientists are researching a new way to extract juice from banana. Yeah, atomic scientists. Go figure.


6. It's bad luck to bring bananas on a boat. Sailors' superstition. Some ships even ban Banana Boat sunscreen or Banana Republic clothes onboard. Nobody really knows the reason for sure, but here are some hypothesis. What makes me wonder, how the invention of the banana boat was even possible?

7. Bananas are awesome cures for hangover! That's because, like Coke (the soda, smart ass), they're rich in potassium. 

8. A banana can be a weapon! In Monrovia, Maryland, a man hold up a store with a banana. The thief snatched one fruit from the counter and began hitting the clerk, who pulled out a knife. The man with the banana split with no profit from the crime, except for the banana, which was damaged by then. And in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a man hid a banana under his shirt and pretended it was a gun when trying to rob a store. He was caught by the store owner and ate the evidence while waiting for the cops. Strangely, he was charged with felony attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon. Not a very effective weapon, but a nutritious one.

9. Bananas are an important staple food. They are the most popular fruit in the world and the fourth most consumed food item in the world (after wheat, rice, and corn).


10. In Brazil, the second biggest banana producer in the world after India, there are a few popular bananas: nanica (Cavendish), prata (my favorite, picture in photo above), ouro (baby banana, golden and very sweet), figo (purple), maçã (don't know the name in English, translates as "apple banana"), banana-da-terra or pacová (plantain, more popular in the North).


Dan Koeppel wrote the ultimate book on bananas, a fun and well written treaty of the history, politics, culture, and science of this truly awesome fruit. It's called Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World (read a review here). He also has a most excellent banana blog.


All images from the Wikipedia article on banana, except the one of banana juice, from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre site.

This article was first published on Ranker

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