Banana

The banana is a long, curved, yellow fruit. According to botanists it is a berry. According to the same botanists the strawberry is not, and neither is the raspberry, the two fruits whose names were the main evidence everyone else had to go on.^[1]

The banana plant is not a tree. It is a herb, the largest herbaceous flowering plant in the world, and has been asked repeatedly not to stand so close to the trees.

Berry status

In botany a berry is a fleshy fruit that grows from a single flower with a single ovary and usually contains seeds. The banana, the grape, the tomato and the aubergine all qualify. The strawberry does not, because its seeds are on the outside; each of those little pips is technically a fruit in its own right, which makes a strawberry less a berry than a crowd.^[2]

Fruit bowls have refused to recognise the ruling, and continue to group fruit by colour and how much it rolls.

Radioactivity

Bananas are very slightly radioactive, because they contain potassium and a small part of all natural potassium is a radioactive form called potassium-40. The amount is so small that scientists use the banana equivalent dose as an informal way of explaining just how small other small doses are.^[3] To come to any harm from bananas this way a person would need to eat millions of them at once, which would cause other problems first.

Bananas sold in shops

Almost all bananas sold in shops are a seedless variety grown from cuttings, which means they are, more or less, the same banana many times over. Grocers have been reassured that they are still allowed to charge for each one separately.

See also

• Yellow – its colour
• Orange – a fruit with a simpler legal position
• Tree – what it isn't
• Pineapple – a fruit that wears armour

References

1. Peel, P. (1993). It's a Berry. Bunch Press.
2. Pip, R. (2006). “Strawberry Status: Withdrawn”. Fruit Law Review 9: 1–2.
3. Curve, C. (2014). How Small Is Small? In Bananas. Skin Press.