NOT ALL BANANAS ARE YELLOW
The majority of bananas we eat usually have a nice yellow color. In a pinch, they have a green color which indicates that they are not yet ripe enough. Not all bananas are yellow in color, however. There are indeed red, and even blue. Red bananas are grown in Ecuador and Colombia, while blue ones are found in Hawaii. The Hawaiian blue banana is a really special fruit given that it tastes like vanilla ice cream.
BANANAS ARE RADIOACTIVE
The fact that bananas are radioactive is far from a myth, but so are many other fruits and vegetables. The element that makes bananas a radioactive food is an isotope of potassium. Potassium 40 (K-40) makes up about 0.01% of all potassium. All potassium-rich foods have the same percentage of radioactive K-40. Since it is ultimately only a tiny amount, eating bananas poses no risk of radioactive poisoning.
BANANA CULTIVATION GOES BACK A LONG WAY
The banana is perhaps the oldest cultivated plant in the world. There is evidence that bananas were grown in the highlands of New Guinea at least 5,000 years ago, and that varieties of Musa bananas were grown in the Mekong Delta region of Southeast Asia there. 8000 years ago. Many of the various varieties of bananas that exist today are these subspecies of these ancient crops.
SOME SPECIES OF BANANAS HAVE SEEDS
Some bananas, depending on the species, and especially wild bananas, may have seeds. These wild bananas even have so many seeds that they are barely edible. They are called diploid bananas, the ones we are used to eating are triploid bananas, and are the result of many generations of cultivation techniques that aimed to get rid of the seeds.
OTHER USES OF BANANAS
In some parts of the world, bananas aren’t just for eating. Unripe bananas are high in starch, and are sometimes dried and ground into flour. Banana leaves are used as materials to make umbrellas, carpets, roofing and even clothes. In tropical countries, they are used to wrap food. Banana leaves can also be used to make yarn and paper. Banana peel is widely used as a substitute for cosmetics to purify the skin, and banana sap is a widely used aphrodisiac product in Central America.
BANANAS CAN BE DANGEROUS FOR PEOPLE WITH LATEX ALLERGIES
A person is allergic to latex because their immune system reacts to a particular protein in latex. This protein actually has a structure very similar to the proteins present in several foods of plant origin, including bananas, but also kiwi, avocado, papaya, chestnut, tomato, potato and pepper. . The person allergic to latex could then have the same allergic reaction as with latex with one of these foods, and this is called “cross-reactivity”.
