February 25th: Bananas are back

On this date in 1946 the first bananas arrived in Britain after the war. Here are some things you might not know about bananas:

1. Bananas don't grow on trees. The banana "tree" is actually the world's largest herbaceous plant. Bananas are not fruit, either - they are technically berries and do not produce seeds.
2. The clusters of five or six bananas sold in supermarkets are not bunches - they are called hands. A bunch is made up of anything up to twenty hands. The largest bunch on record was grown in 2001 in the Canary Islands and contained 473 bananas. The technical term for a single banana is a "finger".
3. Bananas are radioactive. More so than any other fruit, anyway. This is because they are high in Potassium which naturally contains some of the isotope potassium-40. The banana equivalent dose of radiation is sometimes used in nuclear communication to compare radiation levels and exposures.
4. Despite this, they're good for you. Bananas are an excellent source of vitamin B6, manganese and dietary fibre as well as 15% of your daily recommended Vitamin C. Bananas are the only fruit to contain the amino acid tryptophan plus vitamin B6, which together help the body produce seratonin, the natural chemical which alleviates mental depression - so eating one can even cheer you up.
5. This wouldn't work on bees, though - the chemical compound that gives the banana its taste is the same as the pheromone that makes bees agitated.
6. Bananas are a staple food in many parts of the world and are thought to be the fourth most important crop after Rice, wheat and maize. They are grown in over 100 countries. India is the biggest producer - they grow 18% of the world's bananas, but don't export very many - presumably the large population munch most of them themselves. Ecuador is the country that grows bananas to export - 29% of the bananas exported come from here. Uganda, not India, is the biggest consumer. Ugandans eat around three bananas a day. They’re so important to the country’s diet that the Ugandan word for food, “matoke”, is also the name of their banana-based national dish.
7. As apples have cooking and eating varieties, so do bananas. The less sweet and more starchy cooking varieties are called plantains.
8. Bananas are picked before they are ripe and when they arrive at their destination they are stored in special airtight rooms filled with ethylene gas, which is a ripening agent. This is what makes bananas so vividly yellow. A tree-ripened banana would be more of a greenish yellow. Sometimes bananas in shops are green. To ripen them quickly, leave overnight in a brown paper bag with an apple or a tomato.
9. When all the bananas in a bunch have been picked, the remaining heart can be cooked as a vegetable - it tastes a bit like Artichoke. The leaves are often used as disposable plates in Asia. The trunk of the "tree" can be used to make textiles and paper.
10. The best selling sheet music ever is a song about bananas - Yes! We Have No Bananas was written by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn and originally released in 1923.