Did you know that every year, the third Wednesday of April is celebrated as National Banana Day in the US? Why not? After
all, there seems to be a day for everything.
Bananas are one of the world's
most significant food crops. They are from a family of plants called Musa
that are native to Southeast Asia and cultivated in many of the warmer
places of the globe. Bananas
Here we’re going to look at some of the most interesting facts about bananas,
including the history, types, health / nutritional advantages, and other
amazing fun bananas facts.
So grab a banana and learn about these 12 amazing facts about bananas. (6th one is shocking!)
The nutrition facts for 1 medium-sized banana (100 grams) are:
- Calories: 89
- Water: 75%
- Protein: 1.1 grams
- Carbs: 22.8 grams
- Sugar: 12.2 grams
- Fiber: 2.6 grams
- Fat: 0.3 grams
Bananas are mostly made up of carbohydrates. Unripe bananas may include some resistant starch, which acts like fibre in your stomach and promotes healthy blood sugar levels.
- Potassium: 422 milligrams (mg)
- Magnesium: 32mg
- Calcium: 6mg
- Iron: 0.31mg
- Zinc: 0.18mg
- Vitamin C: 10.3mg
- Vitamin A: 76 international units (IU)
- Vitamin B6: 0.43mg
- Vitamin E: 0.12mg
- Niacin: 0.79mg
#12
Banana is said to be the world's first fruit!
Bananas are said to have originated about ten thousand years ago. Bananas were
shown in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, but archaeological evidence
suggests that they originated in the Southeast Asian and South Pacific
rainforests as early as 8,000 BC.
Bananas were first mentioned in writing around the 6th century B.C. Bananas
were most likely the first fruit to be farmed, and the earliest banana fields
were in Southeast Asia.
Bananas arrived in the Americas in the 16th century, thanks to Portuguese
sailors who brought them from West Africa.
#11
Banana was given its name in 1876 at the Philadelphia World's Fair.
The banana was given its moniker when it was sold for ten cents in an aluminum
foil wrapping at the 1876 Philadelphia World's Fair.
It is derived from the Arabic word "banan," which means "finger." A single
banana is termed a finger and is joined to a collection of other bananas
dubbed a "hand," which resembles the form of a human hand.
Banana is supposed to have originated in West Africa, likely from the Wolof
term banaana, and was brought to English through Spanish or Portuguese.
The scientific name for banana is "musa sapientum", which means "fruit
of clever men."
#10
Bananas are categorized as berries, while banana plants are recognized as herbs in nature.
Bananas, as odd as it may seem, are botanically classified as berries. It all
boils down to how a fruit is classified.
Fruits are actually a plant's reproductive organs. In berries, Seeds are mostly found within the flush of a fruit - like bananas for example!
They may be classified into various subcategories, with berries being one of
them. The plant that bears bananas is frequently referred to be a tree,
although it is really the biggest herbaceous blooming plant with no permanent
woody stems above ground.
The trunk is a fictitious stem. When a banana plant reaches maturity, it
develops a flower spike and stops generating new leaves.
There are five main parts of a banana. They include:
- A hanging cluster of banana hands is known as a bunch.
- Hand: a bunch of bananas (up to 20) that are all attached to the same stem.
- A single banana is called a finger
- The outer layer of the banana peel is called the epidermis.
- The fleshy interior of the banana that you eat is called the pulp.
#9
Bananas are radioactive!
Yes. Bananas contain trace amounts of radioactivity. Bananas are unusual in
the fruit world due to the potassium content, which releases radioactive
electrons when the banana decays. Potassium-containing bananas produce
radioactivity at extremely low levels due to potassium-40 (40K or K-40),[22]
one of the multiple potassium isotopes. Is this a risk? No, you'd have to
consume about 300 bananas every day for many years to be concerned about it
being damaging to you.
#8
The original wild banana had numerous huge, hard seeds and a lot of pulp.
When Alexander the Great and his forces entered India around 300 B.C., they
found the banana crop in the Indian lowlands.
The original wild bananas had huge, hard, and many seeds. Bananas, as we know
them now first, appeared in Africa about 650 A.D.
The Cavendish bananas you eat now are not the same as the Gros Michael bananas
of the 1960s, which were wiped off by a fungus known as "the Panama
illness."
The extinct 'Gros Michel' bananas are thought to be more flavorful and stay longer than the current favourite 'Cavendish' bananas!
#7
Bananas we eat are produced asexually.
Banana is maybe the most artificial fruit on the planet. Although wild
bananas fertilize their blossoms, their fruit contains peppercorn-hard seeds
that render it inedible.
Humans Perfected the Bananas. The domestic banana that we eat is an asexual clone produced through the quiet, artificial process of vegetative propagation.
In certain ways, bananas of this type are clones of one another, which means
there is little or no genetic diversity and hence little or no resistance to
its natural enemies; this is a major issue since it may face extinction.
#6
The most popular eating banana may go extinct in the near future.
The Cavendish banana rose to prominence in 1965, when the previous banana
king, the Gros Michel, went extinct and lost the reign. The Cavendish, named
after Musa Cavendishii, was originally cultivated in 1830 at Chatsworth House
in the United Kingdom.
This banana variety is currently under threat from the Mycosphaerella
fijiensis fungus known as black Sigatoka, as well as a virulent fungal Panama
Disease (Fusarium fungus) known as Tropical Race 4, which has reduced banana
yields by 40% year after year, and it is doomed to follow in the footsteps of
the Gros Michel banana.
This is due to a lack of genetic variation in Cavendish bananas. Cavendish
bananas will very certainly go out of favor for mass production.
This implies we'll need to find a different kind of banana. Not to fear, there
are several banana varieties available, as well as plantains and other
banana-like fruits that we may attempt to produce.
#5
Bananas are cultivated in over 150 countries and have over 1,000 different kinds.
Cavendish is the most marketed type, accounting for around 47 percent of
worldwide output.
Wild banana variants include bubblegum pink bananas with fuzzy skins,
green-and-white striped bananas with orange sherbet pulp, and bananas that
taste like strawberries when cooked.
Banana cultivar diversity includes a wide range of varieties cultivated for a
variety of uses.
Dessert bananas, like the Cavendish, may be eaten raw since they are sweet and
readily digested when mature.
Plantains, for example, are starchy even when ripe and must be cooked, fried,
or roasted to be pleasant. Some cultivars may be used for both purposes.
#4
A team that discovered why bananas are so slippery earned the Ig Nobel Prize 2014 in Physics.
The fake Nobel prizes, which have become nearly as renowned as the genuine
Nobels, were presented to a Japanese team of researchers during their 2014
annual event at Harvard University in the United States.
Kiyoshi Mabuchi's Japanese team evaluated the friction of banana skin in the
lab and demonstrated why apple and orange peel are not as dangerous.
The Kitasato University team was awarded the physics Ig for their
contributions. As it turns out, the polysaccharide molecules in the peel,
which are also present in our joints, are to blame.
#3
Bananas are one of the most popular fruits in the world.
Every year, more than 100 billion bananas are consumed worldwide, making them
the fourth most popular agricultural crop.
Unlike highly processed items like eggs and beef, bananas are a biological
marvel and the world's fourth most valuable food crop.
According to a preliminary United Nations study, global banana exports reached
around 24.5 million tonnes (22.2 million metric tonnes) in 2020.
#2
India and China are the world's largest banana producers.
India produces over 29 million tonnes per year on average, whereas China
generates approximately 11 million tonnes. Around the world, around 5.6
million hectares of land are utilized for banana cultivation.
The precise amount of bananas produced internationally is difficult to
quantify due to the prevalence of smallholder farms, but around 50 billion
tonnes of Cavendish bananas are produced globally each year.
Almost all bananas sent to the United States are Cavendish bananas, which are
more resistant to the impacts of transportation.
#1
The world's biggest collection of banana-related stuffs.
Ken Bannister (USA) is the proprietor of the International Banana Club Museum
in Altadena, California, USA, which has the world's greatest collection
dedicated to any one fruit.
As a result, the museum opened in 1972 and now boasts over 9,000 members from
27 countries across the globe. Banana slippers and costumes, banana pops, pots
and pipes, toys, puppets, and other items are included in the
collection.
The museum set a Guinness World Record in 1999 as the biggest museum dedicated
to a single fruit. At the time, it had over 17,000 banana products, the
majority of which were given by members. (For further information, go to
www.bananaclub.com.)
Here is a infographic on the Nutritional and Health Benefits of consuming bananas:
So there you have it: 12+ interesting banana facts to make you go crazy over,
well, bananas.
Bananas, according to Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, are "one of the most interesting species on the planet."
The yellow banana offers a plethora of health advantages and is useful in the
search for the ideal prosthesis. One thing is certain: the lunchbox staple
will now be treated with a bit more reverence by us every day from now on.
It's Now Your Turn
What are your thoughts on these banana facts? Did any of these catch you off
guard? Have you discovered anything new about the banana? Let us know what you
think in the comments!
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