Bananas: A near perfect-fruit

I’m bananas about bananas.

Fruits are pretty cool (no disrespect to veggies). Yeah, we may have found them icky as kids, but fruits are one of those things that you appreciate more as you get older. They’re basically an all-natural snack: they’re flavourful and come practically ready to eat.

Out of all the fruits, I’d say bananas are the best.

Hear me out.

Apples and oranges are great and all, but they have to be washed before eating, and they can sometimes leave you with sticky hands. On the other hand, bananas are no fuss. Just peel ‘em and eat ‘em, no cutlery required (though you can slice them in half if you’re feeling bougie…).

Also, bananas are useful at almost every stage of their lifespan. Are they still green? Cook them! A couple of years ago, cooking bananas seemed like a crime against nature to me, but when I tried fried plantain (a type of banana),  my mind was changed. Then there’s matoke. I was at a canteen one day and saw that they had matoke with beef stew and I decided to go for it. It was delicious! Who knew steamed bananas and stew would go so well together? Creamed matoke is great as well.

I’d say a banana’s flavour reaches its apex when it’s yellow and spotty (with a stain for good measure). But if your bananas are getting a little too ripe, you can make banana bread with them! There are so many good banana-themed deserts: banana splits, banana milkshakes…I wonder if banana cake exists. If not, that’s untapped potential right there. When bananas are too far gone for eating…use them for compost! Yeah, you can do that with other fruits, but nevertheless…

Bananas are good sources of several types of Vitamin B: B3, B6 and B12. These vitamins assist in releasing energy from carbohydrates one has consumed. Bananas are also rich in potassium, a mineral that's important for maintaining good cardiovascular health, as it helps to keep blood pressure low. Bananas also emit (small) amounts of radiation. So if you eat enough, you may get superpowers.

Anyway, thank God for bananas.

To this day, however; I’ve never seen anyone slip on a banana peel.

Sources:

Doing it Ripe: The Benefits of Eating Bananas at every stage of ripeness. (Serotonin).

What happens to your body when you eat bananas every day. (2024, Shavonne Morrison, Christa Brown, EatingWell).

Are bananas really "radioactive?" (2024, Sarah Loughran, University of Wollongong).