Have You Been Eating Bananas All This Time Wrong?
Welcome to our Banana Eating Workshop where we will discuss how to properly peel a banana. If you’re thinking, “There’s no right way to peel a banana!” you may not be ready to hear that, in the words of none other than Chiquita herself , there is a “right” way – and you’ve probably done it wrong all your life.
Most of us peel from the stem down. And why not? The stem is long, strong, and it just sits there, sticking out like a banana handle, waiting to be pulled. And sometimes, when we were lucky enough to pick the fruit at the peak of its ripeness, peeling the stalk can be an effective method. But what if we miss the peak? If we arrive too early, we will be met with a tense, unyielding rigidity that must be cut away; too late and we have to fight the mushy, bruised mass of deflated potash dreams.
That’s because, according to Chiquita, “As a banana ripens, its skin loses moisture, which leads to the destruction of skin cells and makes the skin thinner and more pliable.” This means that as the banana matures, the stem becomes more flexible, making it difficult to use as the peeling mechanism we so desire.
Why should you scrape it from the “bottom” (which is actually the top)
Have you ever seen bananas in the wild? They grow in clusters, with the end of the stem pointing down (which technically makes the stem down and the little brown tip at the end up). The stem is where the individual fruit attaches to the rest of the bunch, and also how the entire shebang stays attached to the banana tree. While not a botanical or scientific description, think of the stem as the branch that attaches the banana to the tree, and the fruit itself is like a large bulbous yellow leaf.
How to properly peel a banana
When you understand that the whole function of a barrel is to be tough enough to fight the laws of gravity and keep its charges growing , it’s easy to see why it’s not the best access point to what’s inside. Instead of trying to open the fruit by pulling on the toughest part, for best results, pinch the brown bulbous tip at the back end between your index finger and thumb. The skin should peel off easily. And voila. Now you can enjoy this starchy, nutrient-dense goddess without the epic fight that makes a whole inch look like he just got out of a bar fight.
Is that what monkeys do?
It’s been widely circulated online that the “bottom-scraping” method is the way monkeys eat bananas, but primatologist Katherine Milton told Tech Insider that “the whole wild monkey-banana connection is actually a complete fabrication.” This Quora answer from a self-proclaimed “wildlife research worker” is more direct; he says online wisdom, while satisfying, is actually “bullshit”. Apparently, the monkeys are more likely to eat the whole fruit, peel and all, or cut it open on the side. (However, when the monkeys are fed bananas, theychoose this method .)
Regardless of which species this method can be attributed to, this approach also takes care of that black pointy mass that you always had to manually peel off the (former) bottom of your banana. When you use the peel-from-the-tip method, it is crushed and simply absorbed into the folds of the skin, making the whole process one step easier.
Oh, and you can use the stem as a handle when you eat. How about bananas?