Banana

  1. Bananas grow on trees in bunches. One such bunch can include up to three hundred bananas and weigh up to 55-60 kilograms.
  2. From the point of view of botany, bananas are berries, as well as, for example, watermelons. True, everyone has long since gotten used to considering them fruits anyway.
  3. There are about a thousand species of bananas, and not all of them are edible.
  4. Most of all bananas are eaten in the African country of Burundi – here their consumption averages just under 200 kg per person per year (see interesting facts about Burundi).
  5. Bananas are in second place in the world by weight of the annual harvest, behind oranges, which are grown even more.
  6. India is the world’s number one banana producer.
  7. Dried bananas have about five times as many calories as fresh bananas.
  8. Each year, about 100 billion bananas are consumed worldwide.
  9. Banana is one of the most popular crops in the world. It is the fourth most popular crop, behind rice, corn and wheat.
  10. In Honduras, in the town of La Lima, there is a collection of almost five hundred varieties of bananas (see interesting facts about Honduras).
  11. The first written sources mentioning bananas as an edible plant were written just under three thousand years ago.
  12. The banana tree, strictly speaking, is not a tree, but a grass.
  13. Bananas are the most radioactive fruit on Earth, they contain large amounts of the radioactive isotope potassium. But it’s only high compared to other crops, so it’s a worry.
  14. Bananas taste better when ripened while still green.
  15. Ecuador supplies the most bananas to other countries. Chances are the bananas you are buying are grown in this country (see interesting facts about Ecuador).
  16. From one hectare of banana plantation sometimes harvest up to 40 tons of bananas.
  17. Bananas take a very long time to ripen – from ten to eighteen months depending on the variety. That is why bananas, although they grow in the south of Russia, in the vicinity of Sochi, do not ripen, because the Sochi winter is too cold for bananas.
  18. Bananas are even used to make products such as flour and ketchup. Banana ketchup became widespread in the Philippines during World War II, when real ketchup became an expensive rarity (see interesting facts about the Philippines).
  19. Banana peels are used in the making of soap.
  20. Once the most popular varieties of bananas became almost extinct in the 20th century due to the spread of diseases affecting these particular plants.