What are those long strings that hide under the banana peel?
I was just eating a banana when I started to wonder what those long thin strips of something that hide under the banana peel and make the otherwise perfect experience of eating a banana a tiny bit messier actually are.
Sorry for the graininess of the image, but this is all my smartphone could do and I hope it's enough to illustrate what I'm talking about...
So I simply had to look it up. Turns out those things are called phloem bundles and they do indeed serve a purpose. What they do is transport nutrients and water so the fruit can actually grow and end up satisfyingly into our tummies. And if you end up eating some of those banana strings, you might not even notice and it will not harm or help your body in any significant way since they are so thin.
Turns out that in reality, not only could you eat the phloem bundles and be safe and healthy, but you could eat the whole banana peal and have no problem (if you wash it properly as I'd expect it to be covered in pesticides and/or chemicals meant to preserve the banana in one way or another).
ha ha ha
I'm going to spin your reaction as positive and I'm going to say glad you enjoyed the post :P I hope that's the actual case... :)
A mystery solved! I've always wondered what they are but have never managed to remember to look it up.
I was just starting to eat the banana while wondering what to post about when it hit me that I would like to know that, so I went on a looked it up. I'm sure many people would have guessed correctly if they seriously though about it, but I wasn't one of them. Now that I know it, it doesn't look surprising at all.
Thank you for this fine, new (to me!) tidbit of knowledge...
So, "Who designed the banana for this worthy purpose?" ;)
😄😇😄
Always a pleasure! Thank you for reading and thank you for stopping by to comment :)
For the most part, it just happened. The last part which might have been the one that made those things as visible as they are, it was humans. I've actually posted about what some fruits and veggies actually looked like before we started to change them some time ago.