For some, however, the potassium-packed phallus is a source of loathing

December 3, 2019 11:00 PM

"I get this creepy crawly feeling, where the hairs on my arms stick up, and I get all shuddery. Whenever I smell one I have to seek it out. Once I locate it, I have to remove myself from close range. I don't want be able to see it, but I like to know where it is so I can keep my distance."

What, short of a rotting carcass or a rabid dog, could elicit such repulsion? If you're someone who hates bananas, it's likely you know the answer. (Britt Mann, stuff)
posted by Johnny Wallflower (68 comments total)

The comparison to avocados is apt. I find both tasty when they're perfectly ripe, but repulsive like few other fruits when even slightly past their prime.

However, I'm glad I left a banana in a plastic bag out in the desert sun by accident once, because although the banana was lost to me as a food, it revealed to me the photographic property of its skin which, being extracted from the bag, bore a legible inscription in brown on brown: "WARNING: Do not give to children under 3 years of age. May pose suffocation hazard."
posted by aws17576 at 11:22 PM on December 3, 2019 [14 favorites]

Man, I don't like bananas either, but just because they are mushy.

A friend made banana bread and I ate it to be polite, but I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't actually taste like banana at all, just fluffy bread.

I'm surprised bananas are so unpopular there. In the US it's super weird to not like the things.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:25 PM on December 3, 2019 [3 favorites]

Recreating the Banana Breakfast from 'Gravity's Rainbow' Is a Terrible Idea
posted by chavenet at 12:35 AM on December 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

It me, except cauliflower. (I can't stand other brassica cultivars either, but cauliflower in particular ...)

Food phobias/aversions are weird.
posted by cstross at 1:02 AM on December 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

I’m falling out of love with the banana. I used to love them, and still do love banana bread and banana cake. Something about the texture has become unpleasant to me, as well as the aroma. The guy sitting next to me at work has a habit of eating a banana or two for lunch a couple times a week, and sometimes he’ll just leave the peels sitting on his desk. Luckily, most of the time he does that, I’ve got a class to get to, but good lord, the smell has become unbearable to me.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:36 AM on December 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

This person is the exact opposite of my 3yo, who will seek out and consume any banana they detect.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:41 AM on December 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

I love banana bread, I love bananas in smoothies, banana ice cream.

Can't eat an actual banana. The very thought makes me gag. It's the texture.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 1:52 AM on December 4, 2019 [6 favorites]

I like bananas, but if all one has tried is the boring old Cavendish banana then you're missing out. There's a LOT of different types of banana out there, with a huge variety of flavours and textures. One of the things I miss most about living in SEA is the super sweet, tiny type of banana you could get there. Eat 'em fresh or peel them, dunk them in batter and give them a quick fry to make pisang goreng... Sublime.
posted by dazed_one at 2:15 AM on December 4, 2019 [7 favorites]

Ew. No. Violent aversion here. They are no more food to me than dog poop is.

If I were trapped on a desert island with nothing to eat but bananas or my shipmates...well...I'd suggest you not go sailing with me. If you wish to remain uneaten in the event of a shipwreck.
posted by biscotti at 2:27 AM on December 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

I don't have strong feelings about bananas one way or another aside from the fact that false banana flavouring is the most heinous atrocity the world has ever known. The real issue is that the gas used to artificially ripen them in fruit warehouses before sending them out for sale is the worst known migraine trigger on earth, and having even a single banana in an enclosed space with me for as little as 30 minutes gives me such an extreme horrifying violent migraine with such a frankly terrifying array of neurological symptoms that I have lost count of the number of times people have tried to call an ambulance for me while assuming I'm having a massive fatal stroke.

anyway they are banished from my home
posted by poffin boffin at 3:00 AM on December 4, 2019 [21 favorites]

Genuinely, before reading this thread, I would have accepted that there were people out there that didn't like bananas, but would have suggested to you that they were uncommon, like not liking ice cream. But perhaps that's naive? Seems like a lot of you have problems with them.

It's interesting, because my 8 yo son has real trouble with certain textures and the idea of food phobias is sort of front and centre right now. He's fine with bananas.
posted by trif at 3:18 AM on December 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Poffin, That escalated quickly :)
posted by trif at 3:18 AM on December 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

I was crossing campus very early one morning, and, when I reached the center of the grassy commons, I found a pentacle made of many overripe bananas. I stopped and took a picture. I thought I was alone, but, as I raised my head, I saw a woman standing across from me, also taking a picture. We contemplated each other for a moment, considered the bananas for a few moments more, and looked at each other again. “Do you supposed we're cursed now?” I hazarded. “Oh god, I hope not,” she responded, and we went on our separate, no doubt doomed, paths.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:26 AM on December 4, 2019 [26 favorites]

It me! I can barely tolerate even the faintest smell of a banana. When I was pregnant, my husband started eating a banana when we were in the car together and I pulled over and made him get out. The texture gives me the willies, everything about them just creeps me way out.
posted by soren_lorensen at 3:46 AM on December 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

Genuinely, before reading this thread, I would have accepted that there were people out there that didn't like bananas, but would have suggested to you that they were uncommon, like not liking ice cream. But perhaps that's naive? Seems like a lot of you have problems with them.

Yeah, I adore them and it wouldn't have occurred to me that there were many people who didn't.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:31 AM on December 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

The Pioneer Woman also hates bananas. I remember reading that and thinking, "what a rare aversion", but... guess not.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 4:42 AM on December 4, 2019

The article reminded me that not everyone knows the best way to peel a banana (e.g. the teacher who has to help kids peel them). Pinch its bottom, the very tip, until the skin splits, then it's trivial to peel upwards towards the stem. No knife, scissors, teeth, or other heroics required, and you get fewer strings and all of the peel hangs together for easy disposal.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:52 AM on December 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

This is, uh, bananas to me. I eat a banana -- sometimes more than one -- just about every day. Probably 300+ a year. I prefer them a bit too-ripe, and will even happily eat one that, like the Grinch, has a greasy black peel, but if we've purchased unwisely and have only bananas with greenish stems? I'm probably still going to eat one.
posted by uncleozzy at 4:58 AM on December 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

Every year I read a new article about scientists warning that due to genetic modification, we are just one blight away from bananas going extinct.

And every year I'm like, "Well, get on with it!"
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:06 AM on December 4, 2019 [9 favorites]

Bananas are so good on a peanut butter sandwich or a sundae. Or in bread or muffins. They're okay by themselves or in a smoothie or something.

Artificial banana flavor kind of sucks though. I often wonder why it's called "banana" when it tastes distinctly not-banana.
posted by Foosnark at 5:16 AM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

HATE THEM. Can't smell them without feeling sick. Only food like this for me.
posted by agregoli at 5:20 AM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

I like bananas because they're not raspberries
posted by scruss at 5:21 AM on December 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

This has been a source of contention in our house. I like bananas ok, but only if they are at what is for me just the right stage, which is just on the pre-cusp of ripeness. My partner likes them when they have gone way past that, into the blackened skin timeframe.

After a few occasions where I helpfully threw away what I saw as rotten bananas, she now leaves a note saying "do not discard!" on bananas that are still in the aging process. I do my best to put up with the smell of banana decay ripening in the spirit of family peace and harmony.

The absolute worst for me, though, is cooked sweet bananas. Not fried plantains, those are wonderful, and cooked green bananas are basically like potatoes, but those breakfast and dessert dishes where ripe banana is baked or fried. It makes them totally mushy and concentrates the (to me) unpleasant parts of the flavor. I think the cooked banana dishes are going out of style, though, and I haven't been served one in a long time.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:39 AM on December 4, 2019

Yep. It me.

The worst part is, there's a couple of family recipes that require bananas (worse - old mushy bananas), and from time to time I need to bake them. I do it because I love my family, but boy does it make me feel like this.
posted by Mchelly at 5:41 AM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

I would eat a banana, but when I turned 40 (and I mean *snaps fingers* when I turned 40), I became allergic to them. If one touches my tongue, it feels like my mouth is burning. Apparently it's not uncommon in those of us with ragweed allergy, as mildly alluded to in TFA. Banana-haters may look upon me with a certain envy at having such a ready excuse for turning one down.
posted by bryon at 5:59 AM on December 4, 2019

A couple of clarifications:
Banana flavoring is one simple note from a complex fruit.
Its taste is closer to the older cultivar, Gros Michel.
The Cavendish banana that replaced the Gros Michel is not genetically modified, the problem is that every Cavendish is a clone of the original, so they are all equally vulnerable to the same diseases. The banana that replaces it industrially may be GMO, though.
If you, like me, wondered why Richard Scarry drew all those hanging bunches of bananas in the Busytown grocery when we buy them in little groups of half a dozen or so (called "hands" in the industry), it's because Gros Michel were more durable and could be transported that way. Cavendish have to be broken up and boxed.
posted by rikschell at 6:02 AM on December 4, 2019 [15 favorites]

I used to really like bananas - I would especially eat them during rehearsals in high school when my toes were starting to cramp because I had learned about sodium-potassium ion pumps in AP bio - but then I was part of a project where we were using bananas to bait traps for monkeys in the Amazon. It took them a STUPID amount of time to realize that bananas are fruit (contrary to popular belief, monkeys don't habitually eat bananas). Bullet ants figured it out really quickly, so re-baiting the feeding platforms always put you at risk of bullet ant stings. And we'd get our bananas shipped upriver in "branch of a banana tree" quantities, and we'd have to suspend them from a rope in the ceiling to keep some of the critters from eating all of them, but Amazonian cockroaches are clever beasts and seeing cockroaches pop out of a rotten banana you were about to pull off of a branch is just ... enough that I can never ever in a million years eat a banana again.

Plantains, on the other hand ...
posted by ChuraChura at 6:20 AM on December 4, 2019 [12 favorites]

This person is the exact opposite of my 3yo, who will seek out and consume any banana they detect.

Are you sure your child isn't really a Minion?

Texture is an often-overlooked angle on food preferences. No problem with bananas here, but runny egg yolk is something I've had a problem with for years. Harder-cooked eggs, no problem.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:21 AM on December 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

i like bananas because they have no bones
posted by murphy slaw at 6:22 AM on December 4, 2019 [6 favorites]

Yeah, I'm another who finds the taste of bananas revolting; artificial banana flavor is even more worstest (but I also have problems with a lot of artificial flavors; there's one in 'tropical flavored' candies that my tongue interprets as 'body odor', and a lot are just vaguely 'chemicals').

Banana bread is OK, though; I'm beginning to think the banana contents are purely just so it can call itself 'banana', since there's so much other stuff in there that it'd probably taste the same if bananas were left out entirely.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:27 AM on December 4, 2019

I can eat a banana when it’s perfectly ripe, and then JUST after that, forget it.

One time, my husband left a banana in his backpack and forgot about it. A while later (a week? two?), he opened the bag and wondered, “What is this purple thing?” Friends, it was the banana. Luckily, Febreze got the smell out...
posted by trillian at 6:31 AM on December 4, 2019

I live in a banana centric household. We love bananas and each of us will eat one a day every day, and we all like them at the slightly green stage. I will still eat them after, though my roommates won't touch them then. If they get really too ripe, they get tossed in the freezer for smoothies. I know people who don't particularly like em, but not to a phobic degree. I had no idea there were people who felt this strongly about them.
posted by evilDoug at 6:34 AM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Bananas themselves can BEAT IT and never darken my doorstep again but dear sweet banana bread can come sit next to me anytime at all.
posted by youarenothere at 6:53 AM on December 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

My mother heard somewhere in the late 80s that a sign of abuse was not liking bananas (I’m assuming it was some phallic thing) so she started insisting that I eat them at every public breakfast where there were offered including on an ocean liner crossing. I was in my late teens/early 20s, having high-pitched arguments about eating bananas to look normal.

Spoiler alert: had been abused, she had plenty of evidence to have drawn on.

I like them in smoothies and banana bread just fine.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:09 AM on December 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

Weird. I love bananas, and even love artificial banana favouring. Banana popsicles and circus peanuts are my favourites. We go through a lot of bananas in my house... two or three bunches a week at least. Green or super ripe, they all get eaten, unless the banana is mush. Then it gets thrown in the freezer to get turned into banana bread.

All this banana talk is making me hungry.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:09 AM on December 4, 2019 [3 favorites]

My roommate and I both like bananas ok, but I recently discovered she thinks they've gone bad and gross once they start getting little dark speckles. For me, they're basically inedible UNTIL they start getting speckles.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:33 AM on December 4, 2019 [4 favorites]

I liked bananas when I was a kid but I've been allergic to them since I was a teenager and haven't eaten one in years. Most of my other food allergies have gone away so I thought I'd give bananas a try again. I brought one home and cut it up, but I've spent so many years avoiding them I couldn't even bring myself to put it in my mouth. I had to throw it away. So no bananas for me.

They have a very distinctive smell so I guess it's just easy to develop an aversion to them.
posted by interplanetjanet at 7:38 AM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

I get banana aversion. I don't entirely share it but I get it. For me it is simply an issue of texture, those threads and the mealiness, so I have no problem in stuff or cooked (banana curry for instance is a thing) but I wouldn't peel and eat one unless I had to. And yeah that smell is distinct and overpowering at times. Especially if they gassed them. But if you like bananas and only have experienced the Cavendish? You're missing out.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:06 AM on December 4, 2019

I can eat bananas, not overripe. Banana bread is okay, banana cream pie is not. If you eat a banana, the peel must be disposed of elsewhere, promptly. most artificial banana flavor is really gross, except Juicy Fruit.
posted by theora55 at 8:28 AM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Every now and then I get a real urge to have a banana spread with crunchy peanut butter. I will have it and enjoy it, and that's enough bananas for me for the next several months.

I HATE banana bread, and most fruit breads or muffins except for anything lemon-poppyseed. Banana bread is by far the worst, though.
posted by dlugoczaj at 8:56 AM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Another banana hater here!

I really dislike bananas, but especially the ubiquitous Cavendish. I used to force myself to eat them because of all they hype about how healthy they are, and I seriously dislike them to the point of revulsion and disgust response if they're ripe anywhere beyond yellow to yellow-green. I'd also buy them and then all too often never even eat them before they got too ripe for my tastes. I've never bought more than, say, 2-3 at a time, either, because even back then I knew I wouldn't finish a whole family sized bunch.

Also, pretty much the worst thing ever is canned fruit salad with... fucking canned banana chunks in it. Oh my god why *hooooooork*

I dislike the taste. I dislike the texture. I dislike the smell. I don't even like the peel. I don't even like how they look. Heck, I don't even like the word banana. It's irritating to say or type and has too many a's and n's.

So I stopped forcing myself to eat them or like them years ago and haven't looked back. I'd rather eat things I actually like like apples, pears and berries, which are both local and often totally organic and freely growing.

I also don't like how bananas are grown, produced or shipped. Or the history of the United Fruit company and the modern version of it with Chiquita today. It's a pretty horrible company, and the chaotic evil part of me that really, really dislikes bananas might actually like to see the extensive, monolithic Cavendish banana monoculture finally succumb to a rapidly spreading fungus or parasite like it's been threatening to do for so long.

Which, yeah, is pretty horrible and chaotic evil, but I don't like bananas. I mean I dislike them so much that if I was like Bill Gates rich I might take on a campaign to get Chiquita Cavendish banana croppers to grow something else entirely or just buy a majority in Chiquita to burn it down and make it commit corporate suicide.

I do sometimes like fried plantains or other uses of banana-like fruits, especially in Cuban and Caribbean food, but it's definitely not the first thing I'd order. I also don't hate banana bread, but banana bread might as well be zucchini bread or apple bread or anything else for all I care. I just like bread and muffins and such. If it's a really heavily banana tasting banana bread I might skip it.

I do understand why people like them. The flavor is unique and pleasant if you're into that sort of thing. Banana pancakes can be really good, and I did like banana-peanut butter sandwiches as a kid. We can hang out even if you like bananas. I'll even watch you eat a whole box of them. I just don't want to eat them any more.

Yes, I have no bananas.
posted by loquacious at 8:57 AM on December 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

Bananas are best when they're still a bit green. My trick is to put em in the fridge. It slows down the ripening so they stay slightly green tasting for the whole week. The downside is that the peel immediately turns super black, so it looks like the word's ripest banana barely suitable for banana bread... but inside it's still firm and cold and delicious. Ripe bananas get really squishy and sickeningly sweet. I can eat them, but literally by throwing my head back and choking it down while trying to supress vomit reflex. It's truly a disgusting and unfortunate sight to be see or be around, but hey, ya gotta eat.
posted by GoblinHoney at 9:08 AM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

I had no idea there were so many banana haters out there!

Fake banana flavoring is a nightmare, though. I don't know anyone who likes it.

(I loathe most squash but will eat squash-based breads, no problem. From this I conclude that most of us can easily be bought off with a lot of sugar and cinnamon/cloves.)
posted by praemunire at 9:29 AM on December 4, 2019

Banana fanna fo... had to get that out of my system.
I love bananas. I usually keep them in the fridge, where black peels are no barrier to good fruit. I love them sliced on vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce, or as a substitute for ice cream altogether.
It's the cold season, many of the summer fruits are disappearing or too expensive, but apples and bananas are a constant year round.
I am not happy with gnats when the bananas get too ripe, hence preferring the cold storage. But I will take a banana over any cereal or muffin any day.
The idea of a banana allergy is dreadful.
posted by TrishaU at 9:33 AM on December 4, 2019

If you freeze a banana until solid, then whiz it up in a blender or food processor, it gets creamy and a little gooey, just like custard ice cream.

It works, and is a great healthy ice-cream alternative for kids (and adults).
posted by Kiwi at 9:49 AM on December 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

I'm sad so many people dislike bananas (other than the aversion, then my sympathies, seriously) but then again, when I'm outside Southeast Asia, I'll tolerate a Cavendish when I'm desperate. Though I usually wait for those to turn overripe then it's time to mash them with some self-raising flour, salt, sugar and make banana fritters.

Re: the mushiness - totally my favourite part of bananas, though when I think about it, it is a common fruit texture here in the tropics (eg durian, custard apple, tarap, snake fruit...) So all I have are positive associations.
posted by cendawanita at 9:58 AM on December 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

I love reading threads like this, the variety in taste and texture sensations that people describe. Just like some folks need reading glasses (me), some folks can hear really low tones, our sense of taste (smell + taste) and texture is slightly different to all. There are broad general (and cultural) agreements, but we're all degrees of acuity when it comes to tastes and odors. Maybe a more apt simile is degrees of color perception. Some medications absolutely change our sense of taste. I appreciate the effort to describe something even when you dislike it; I try to imagine what that is like for myself. My job is, quite literally, trying to figure out what other people like to taste.
I like bananas when just barely not quite ripe, slightly green and chalky; bananas with spots get to become a very rich pound-cake like bread if I feel bothered. My cat loves banana bread.
posted by twentyfeetof tacos at 10:09 AM on December 4, 2019

I love bananas, in fact until I read the comment about comparing them to dog poop (was that really necessary? blech.) I was thinking about having one. Maybe later then.

I am also intrigued by the thought of other types other than the "boring old Cavendish." I've bought bananas all sorts of places and have no idea what type of banana they actually are. I haven't noticed names posted like you see with apples. It would be awesome to try different banana cultivars.
posted by 41swans at 10:09 AM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

I love bananas but somehow completely understand the aversion to them: their ketone smell is just a few shades away from antiseptic in quality, their custardy texture an uncomfortably close neighbor to things we shouldn't ever eat, and it honestly makes me wonder if it's that little frisson that makes me like them so much? Either way, caramelize them a little and put them on my pancakes right now.

Now I'm definitely making mofongo this weekend, too.
posted by invitapriore at 10:52 AM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

I have a recipe for banana-banana-banana bread. It is 50% bananas and fantastic.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:53 AM on December 4, 2019

> It's interesting, because my 8 yo son has real trouble with certain textures and the idea of food phobias is sort of front and centre right now. He's fine with bananas.

Same with my son. He's got a limited diet, based on aversions to certain textures and flavors, yet somehow bananas are fine with him. I hate the smell and like them only when they're at precisely the correct level of ripeness, and banana-flavored anything is gross, but maybe the dislike isn't inherited.

> The guy sitting next to me at work has a habit of eating a banana or two for lunch a couple times a week, and sometimes he’ll just leave the peels sitting on his desk.

Oh my god. Ridiculous people complain about their coworkers microwaving fish for lunch, yet this monster is allowed to be employed in an office?
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:28 AM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

How funny.
I have lived a long time
But in all my born days
I never met another person who hates bananas

And I grew up where there are different varieties people describe as 'sweet', 'nutty', 'delicious'. Personally I blame my dad, who decided I was too old, at seven, to have a food fad and sat with me after lunch until I might have finished one. A couple hours of crying and retching later, he gave up, poor man. Everything else I hated I eat now and like it - cabbage, avocado, hot pepper - so the forcing to eat was definitely the wrong way to go. Maybe parents are more aware of this nowadays.

Bananas are so nutritious and convenient I think it's a pity not to be able to abide them. I don't mind the flavour at all, banana bread is yummy. It's the texture.
posted by glasseyes at 11:39 AM on December 4, 2019

My banana aversion has lessened quite a lot over the years, so I do think the forcing incident heightened it. Three years ago I was able to eat the non-banana parts of a fruit salad which had banana chunks in it without being visibly nauseated, quite important etiquette for a guest. This year for the first time I had a smoothie with some banana in it and it is nice and just has a hint of the taste and nothing of the texture.

Plantains are delicious but then nobody tries to eat them raw. I wonder why not, if you like bananas anyway?
posted by glasseyes at 12:16 PM on December 4, 2019

My mom used to give us raw plantains when we were kids because they were cheaper than bananas. Ugh. So starchy. There is a reason people don’t eat them raw.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:26 PM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

They generally repulse me. I thought i was the only one until now.
posted by Liquidwolf at 12:31 PM on December 4, 2019

I once had a coworker who ate bananas with a fork: peel it halfway down then fork off a bite at a time. I always thought it was extremely odd.
posted by slogger at 1:27 PM on December 4, 2019

I like bananas... except for the several years after we made the artificial-banana ester as an organic chemistry lab. Even at micro scale, that was intensely unpleasant.
posted by momus_window at 1:38 PM on December 4, 2019

I strongly disliked bananas when I was younger, though as a child when I was hungry (we never had food in our house so I ate anything when I could), I'd eat banana on dark rye bread and banana ice cream if I was treated to them, the bitterness of the bread and the cold of the ice cream neutralized the banana somewhat. After I moved away into my own home, I never ate bananas or banana-related products.
Then, when I was pregnant with my first child, I had hyperemesis gravidarum, and the only things I could sometimes sustain were banana, milk (which I also previously disliked) and two specific sorts of gelato: raspberry and nougat. Since then I have eaten banana. Right now I eat a slightly green one almost daily as part of a diet to get rid of IBS. I don't *like* them, but I also don't mind them. I still don't eat banana bread or muffins or smoothies or anything if I can politely avoid them.
For me it's not about the texture, more the smell and the combination of that smell with sweet taste.
posted by mumimor at 2:28 PM on December 4, 2019

How strange that no one has derailed this thread to durian fruit!

I, too, like bananas withing a one-day period. That said, I often buy them at our local Asian supermart, where there are several alternatives to Cavendish available. You have to practice with some of them to figure out when they are the best. It may take a week.
posted by kozad at 4:55 PM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Funny about that, mumimor. I generally felt pretty neutral about bananas for the first half of my life, until one morning when I was pregnant with my first-born and had an extremely unpleasant experience involving bananas for breakfast and an empty FedEx envelop as the closest thing on hand to prevent me from having to clean up a considerable amount of banana-sick out of the rug. Literally turned me off bananas for the next 25 years. I can tolerate them cold and raw if need be, and I even like Thai fried bananas and banana bread. But I can't just peel up a banana and eat it straight.
posted by drlith at 5:39 PM on December 4, 2019

If I were trapped on a desert island with nothing to eat but bananas or my shipmates...well...I'd suggest you not go sailing with me. If you wish to remain uneaten in the event of a shipwreck.

We can safely sail together. My lifetime consumption is such that I am at least 5% bananas by weight, without exaggeration.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 6:20 PM on December 4, 2019

This person is the exact opposite of my 3yo, who will seek out and consume any banana they detect.

Do they have a Geiger counter?
posted by aws17576 at 6:50 PM on December 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

As far as fake banana flavor is concerned: are we just talking about Runts candies? That kind of fake banana is terrible.

Banana pudding from the box with Nilla wafers, though? That's a different, delicious beast.
posted by macrowave at 7:07 PM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Bananas are my favorite, because they have appeal.
posted by merriment at 8:01 PM on December 4, 2019 [5 favorites]

Next up, article on “people who hate finding money on the street.” I mean, geeze, they’re just bananas. Now grapefruit, there’s your Satan’s Sadistic Fruit From Hell. Brrrrr.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 8:18 PM on December 4, 2019 [1 favorite]

Gilgamesh's Chauffeur: "Now grapefruit, there’s your Satan’s Sadistic Fruit From Hell"

Small serrated knives with a slightly curved end, at dawn!
posted by chavenet at 3:30 AM on December 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

Of relevance to our discussion of valuing bananas: Banana Duct-Taped to a Wall Sells for $120,000 at Art Basel Miami

A banana duct-taped to a wall has sold for $120,000 at Art Basel Miami, the international art fair featuring works by acclaimed and emerging artists. Another edition of the concept art is expected to sell for $150,000.

The humorous minimalist artwork comes from Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan and is titled Comedian.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:00 AM on December 5, 2019

No knife, scissors, teeth, or other heroics required, and you get fewer strings and all of the peel hangs together for easy disposal.

. . . What kind of bananas are you eating that require tools to peel?
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:14 AM on December 5, 2019 [2 favorites]