EAT MORE FRUIT!, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

For us low-fat raw vegans, bananas are a staple food, much like pasta or bread in a standard diet. I personally eat, on average, two 7-8 cup smoothies a day when I’m in Pittsburgh, or three-four hands when I’m in Hawaii. One of my cats is named Musa. So what’s the dealio? Why is a tropical fruit the most popular food in America?

What’s so special about you?

Well, to get a fuller story, I highly recommend you read this book. But I’ll let you in on a few facts about the banana:

Not that you’d know it by looking at it, but the banana is actually a berry. Yes, it’s grouped with other oddities like avocados and watermelons in addition to cranberries and grapes. The botanical definition of a berry is “a simple fruit having seeds and pulp produced from a single ovary”. This being the case, pumpkins are considered berries while strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and the like are not. Weird?
The banana plant is a type of grass, not a tree. It shoots off offspring via its roots. In fact, the fruit is entirely unnecessary for reproduction.
Some people say that it was a banana that Adam and Eve supposedly consumed in Eden, not an apple. The banana’s leaves make much better clothes, if you think about it.
For a while there was a rumor that bananas had a lot of fat. This is utterly ridiculous. Four percent of a banana’s calories come from fat. Compared to, say, an egg (64%) or “extra lean” beef (60%) it doesn’t seem so bad, does it?
Most likely the banana you’re familiar with is the Cavendish. Let me tell you now: you’re getting the short end of the stick. I haven’t had the opportunity to try many varieties (if you’re up to it, there’s a seemingly infinite amount) but I have had apple bananas, ice cream bananas, quad bananas, ladyfingers, and Williams, just to name a few. Apple bananas are my favorite, and if you’re ever in Hawaii, I highly recommend you get some.
In parts of Africa, people rely on bananas to stay alive the way people in China used to rely on rice, or Europeans relied on wheat.
When monkeys eat too many unripe bananas, their eyes and tongue turn green. Eat ripe food!
Mosquitoes are more apt to bite you if you’ve recently eaten bananas. Maybe this explains my legs the first time I went to Hawaii. (It’s since cleared up a lot, but that’s not to say they don’t still love me.)

Nom nom.