Fun Fruit Facts
Hey kids, here are some interesting things you may not know.
Bananas don't grow on trees! The plant that they grow on is actually a herb - in fact the largest herb in the world!
In the wild, banana plants can grow up to 9 metres tall, but the trees in the Dole plantations are about 4 metres tall.
The average New Zealander eats 18.7kg of bananas per year. That's the equivalent of a banana 26.71 metres long or about 19 kids with their arms stretched out to touch each other!
Bananas ripen best once they have been picked so they are usually picked when they are green.
Bananas grow on a 'stem'. The bananas on a stem are called a 'bunch'. Groups of 10 - 20 bananas form a 'hand' and each banana is called a 'finger'.
Everyone likes their bananas at different stages of ripeness, but they are much easier for your tummy to digest when the skins are fully yellow or have a little bit of brown speckling on them.
If your banana isn't ripe enough for you, put the banana in a bag with an apple or a kiwi fruit and it will ripen much quicker.
It is believed by many experts that bananas were the first fruit cultivated by humans.
In tropical regions where bananas are grown, the large leaves are sometimes used as umbrellas. They are also sometimes used as a plate or to wrap food in to store or cook it.
Monkeys peel their bananas from the top end - the other end to how most of us peel them. Try this yourself, pinch the top end of a firm banana between your fingers and it should burst open and make it easy to peel - you'll even have a 'handle' to hold onto at the other end!
The Philippines is where Dole grows the bananas that it brings into New Zealand. In 2007 the Philippines were the third biggest producer of bananas in the world.
There are hundreds of different varieties of bananas but the most popular one in New Zealand is the Cavendish Banana (Dole's regular and Bobby Bananas are this variety).
You can turn a frozen banana into a kind of ice cream.
Bananas go brown when they have been cut, but if you don't want this to happen, just toss them in some lemon or pineapple juice.
Plantains are a kind of green banana that are almost always used for cooking.
If a mosquito bites you, you could try rubbing the bite with the inside of a banana skin. This can often help with the swelling and the itching.
When the banana was first displayed in America at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876, it was so unusual that it received more interest than the world's first telephone!
Bananas make a great face mask! So if you want to pamper your mum, mash up a ripe banana and gently apply it to her face. Then let her relax for 10 minutes before rinsing it off with cool water. She'll love it.