14 False Facts About Bananas That You Probably Still Believe

We're willing to bet that you have bananas sitting in your kitchen right now. Most of us do, after all. This fruit is affordable, available in every grocery store, and can be used in pretty much every way imaginable, from savory recipes that can save overripe bananas to air fryer banana dishes that turn them into a delectable snack. But how much do you know about those bananas in your fruit bowl? It's probably less than you realize — and odds are that you've probably bought into a few myths about them that have stood the test of time for generations.

For such an inoffensive fruit, bananas have been subject to some pretty wild rumors about safety. Their famously high potassium content has been the source of a longstanding myth that consuming too many bananas can kill or seriously harm you, whereas their peels have been dubbed everything from poisonous to psychoactive. Additionally, people sometimes question how safe they are to eat when unripe — and there have even been folks who have claimed that they can cause shipwrecks. Huh? Well, that's a thing. Plus, all of these myths don't even get to the more harmless ones. Ready to learn the truth about bananas? We're here to help.

Of all the bananas rumors out there about this fruit, the fact that they can kill you has to be the most extreme. This pervasive myth stems from bananas' high potassium content, which is generally seen as a positive for your health and a good way to boost your essential mineral levels. However, the theory goes that if you eat too many bananas, you'll overload your system with potassium, which may result in illness and potentially cardiac arrest.

Sounds pretty scary, right? Well, it's entirely untrue. "It would be impossible to overdose on bananas," says dietitian Catherine Collins via BBC News. You would probably need around 400 bananas a day to build up the kind of potassium levels that would cause your heart to stop beating." It would take roughly 7.5 bananas to reach your daily recommended allowance for potassium, but even if you went slightly over this, you'd be fine — and to be honest, you'd probably get sick of eating them way before then.

Having said this, Collins does point out that certain individuals should watch their potassium intake, and therefore the amount of bananas they eat. Individuals with kidney disease should avoid consuming high levels of potassium, as low kidney function can cause difficulties with passing the mineral through the body.

If you've ever boarded a boat with a banana and been given a suspicious look, you're about to find out why. Bananas have been considered bad luck on boats by fishermen and sailors for a long time, with the alleged roots of the myth stretching back hundreds of years. It's purported that when 18th century boats carrying produce from the Caribbean would sink, the bananas they were carrying would float to the top and bob around the wreckage. The sight of the bananas in the water led to them being a threatening omen, and they thus they became associated with potentially causing their sinkage.

You'll be pleased to know that this is untrue. There's no truth whatsoever in the fact that bananas are bad luck when you're on the ocean. However, the more superstitious amongst the average seafarer might want to avoid them on a cruise. What's slightly more believable is the claim that bananas may cause fishermen to have poorer catches, due to the speed of boats carrying bananas (which is meant to prevent them spoiling en route) disrupting their patches and subsequent hauls. 

Last time you ate a banana, it's likely that you threw the peel away. We get it: You want the fleshy fruit inside, and not the tough, fibrous peel on the outside. It really doesn't feel like there's much use for it — besides a clever trap, perhaps to trip someone. It's certainly not as something you'd eat, right? Well, that's actually not the case. It might surprise you, but you can make the most out of banana peels by incorporating them into your meal. The banana peel is both edible and nutritious, and while they can have a slightly bitter taste, you can still use them in your recipes.

Banana peels can be used to make chips, with their flat shape making them very dippable. You can either fry them or cook them in the oven, and you can jazz them up with seasonings just as you would a regular chip. You can also leave your banana peels on when you're making dishes like banana bread, where they can add a little extra bite and fiber. If you can't be bothered to peel your bananas before adding them to a smoothie, you can just leave the peel on too. Just be aware that doing this will make your smoothie much thicker.

Okay, so we totally get why this myth is so widely believed. Bananas are a neutral food, after all. They're frequently cited as being gentle on the stomach, and they're a key component of the BRAT diet (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, and Toast), which existed long before Charli XCX's famed summer. It's one of the best food plans around when you're immediately recovering from gastroenteritis. Because of this, an assumption has built up around bananas that they don't particularly stimulate stomach acid, and may have a neutralizing effect on heartburn.

However, that's not quite true. Bananas aren't particularly acidic, but for a small amount of people they can have a bloating effect, which can then cause the lower esophageal sphincter to open, allowing acid to creep up through the digestive passage. The sugars in ripe bananas can also stimulate gas and bloating in some people. If you do find that you're getting more heartburn than usual, the best way to check whether it's the bananas you're eating or not is to cut them out of your diet and see if there's any difference.

Have you ever been told that green bananas aren't edible? We're willing to bet you have. Somewhere down the line, a false assumption that green bananas can't be eaten has risen. This might be because they're tougher and less ripe than their yellow counterparts, and that chalky texture and hardness can cause question marks about whether they're ready to consume.

Thankfully, eating green bananas is totally fine for you — and may even provide you with more health benefits than eating the yellow ones. Green bananas are primarily made up of resistant starch, and this can increase their satiating effect. This resistant starch is also beloved by your gut bacteria, which may help them improve your overall gut health. As well as this, the highly resistant starch level in green bananas can mean that the blood sugar spikes that come with consuming them are lower than if you were eating the ripe ones, and as such they may be a healthier choice overall than yellow bananas for certain people. Having said this, you also have to balance it all out with their tougher texture, and that may not be for everyone.

If you've been thinking bananas are a fruit all this time, you're off ... well, kind of. Bananas are indeed a fruit — but botanically speaking, they're actually also a berry. We don't blame you for not knowing this (they don't exactly look like them, after all), but it all comes down to how they're built.

For a fruit to be a true berry, it needs to have a couple of traits. These include having an outer skin, fleshy interior, and inner part which has seeds, and developing from a flower that has only one ovary. It must also have two or more seeds inside it. Bananas check all of these boxes, and although their shape is a little different from what you might consider a berry, they fit right in.

Interestingly, there are loads of other berries out there you might not know about, and fruits you think are berries which actually aren't classified as such. Tomatoes, eggplant, kiwi, and peppers are all berries on a botanical level. Strawberries and raspberries, on the other hand, are not: Instead, they're known as aggregate fruits, made up from a succession of small parts but not equating to a berry as a whole.

Bananas and potassium go hand-in-hand, and most people think of them as the best vehicle for the nutrient. However, that's not quite the case. Although bananas are famous for their potassium, there are loads of other foods out there that have way higher amounts and can be a more efficient vessel for the essential mineral.

On the fruit and vegetable front, avocados and potatoes both have more potassium per serving than bananas. While one medium banana has 422 milligrams of potassium, one medium potato has 952 milligrams, more than double the amount. A cup of sliced avocado, meanwhile, has 708 milligrams of the nutrient.

Certain protein sources may also have more potassium than bananas. Half a fillet of salmon, weighing in at just under 200 grams, has 970 milligrams of potassium. A cup of white beans will provide you with a whopping 1,000 milligrams, and more than 11 grams of fiber for your troubles. Having said that, though, some of these options may not be as convenient to eat as just grabbing and peeling a banana.

Are you ready to have your mind blown? Despite what you may have seen in the past, bananas don't grow on trees. The reason for this is that the thing the banana grows on — yep, that thing that looks so much like a tree — is actually an herb — one big, giant herb. More specifically, it's a perennial herb that replaces itself periodically, and, incredibly, it's vaguely related to the ginger plant.

Kinda wild, right? Interestingly, you can tell it's an herb by looking at its stem. This stem doesn't have any bark on it, like a tree would: Instead, it remains green and relatively soft. At the end of the fruiting cycle, this stem (which is actually known as a pseudostem) dies, but is replaced by other pseudostems that shoot out of the ground and grow new bananas.

The structure of the pseudostem also leads to those fan-like leaves which shade the banana "tree," which look so similar to palm leaves. Importantly, though, bananas aren't related to palm trees either. They come from their own plant. 

Whoever said that you must keep bananas at room temperature has a lot to answer for. Now, it's definitely true that keeping bananas at room temperature is the norm, and it's also the right thing to do if you want your bananas to ripen quickly. However, it's also true that you can pop them in your refrigerator — although doing so at the wrong time may result in you ruining your fruit, or at least not being able to enjoy it at the right time.

If you put your bananas in the refrigerator, you'll stop them from ripening. This may be useful if they've reached their peak ripeness and you just wanna use them slightly later or keep them longer. If you've bought them when they're still a little green, you'll end up with them just ... staying green, just at a colder temperature. As such, you should put bananas in the fridge when you're pretty much ready to eat them but don't want them to go overripe. Plus, be aware that banana skin reacts pretty dramatically to temperature reductions. You might find that it starts to brown within a few days, and while the banana inside will still be perfectly fine to eat, they don't look their best. 

Bananas are famously a tropical fruit, and the classic fruit we all know and love is indigenous to humid regions of Southeast Asia, India, and northern Australia. Although the banana's reign has expanded significantly out of these areas, it's still largely grown in tropical climates like in South and Central America and Africa. It's difficult to imagine bananas growing anywhere else — but the fact of the matter is that they do. It's entirely possible to grow bananas in colder climates, with varieties like the Musa Basjoo (also known as the cold hardy banana) being able to survive when temperatures plummet to as low as 6 degrees Fahrenheit.

It's worth noting that the Musa Basjoo banana has a slightly different appearance from your classic banana, with smaller, squatter fruits. It's also important to keep in mind that the fruit itself is unfortunately not edible. These bananas are typically for ornamental use only, or just to look at. However, it's also true that more typical bananas, like the Cavendish banana, may be slightly hardier than you think. Although they do tend to thrive in more humid climes, if you live in an area that stays above 15 degrees Fahrenheit year-round you may still be able to grow them outside. 

We all know that artificial banana flavor. You know the one: the slightly fruity, bizarrely floral taste that's nothing like actual bananas. It's a wild substitute for the real thing. Yet, at some point down the line, we accepted it as a substitute for natural banana flavor and bought into the idea that it's somehow based on the fresh fruit.

Well, there's no denying that artificial banana flavor has a kind of echo of regular bananas, but it's likely not the case that it's meant to taste like them at all. Well, not the kind that's available in grocery stores, anyway. Artificial banana flavor was developed based on a different type of banana, the Gros Michel (also known as the Big Mike). These bananas became popular in the 19th century and were soon the predominant banana variety in the United States. In the 1950s, however, a fungus ravaged the Gros Michel population, and the Cavendish banana became the go-to.

You can still find the Gros Michel in the U.S., but you'll have to be willing to pay a hefty price, as they're typically only cultivated by specialist growers. If you do grab a bunch, though, be prepared to have your mind blown. People who have tried Gros Michel bananas have reported how similar their flavor actually is to the artificial taste.

Indulge us for a moment, and think of a banana. The image that's in your head is probably a curved, yellow fruit that's fairly chunky and plump, and about seven to eight inches long, right? Well, you wouldn't be wrong there — but what might surprise you is that not all bananas look like that. Instead, bananas come in lots of different sizes and dimensions, and some of them have an unexpected appearance.

Take wild bananas, for instance. These might be somewhat recognisable as bananas, but they're significantly smaller than the commercially-available kind, with most of them about the size of an adult male finger. Peel them and split them in half, and you'll see that they're totally full of seeds, with little flesh. Those seeds have a crunch to them, and this gives wild bananas a slightly bitter flavor. Others, like the Blue Java banana, will have a jade-blue appearance when unripe before turning a pale yellow.

Everyone knows that bananas can provide a quick surge of energy and stave off hunger pretty effectively. However, are they really as sugary as people say? A strange false understanding of bananas has arisen in the last few years, with people assuming that they're completely full of sugar. As a result, some folks have sworn off bananas for good, convinced that they'll play havoc with their blood sugar.

You'll be pleased to hear that isn't the case, folks. Now, it's certainly true that bananas have sugar in them: One medium banana contains about 14 grams. It's important to note, though, that this is actually less than or roughly equivalent to a lot of other fruits. One medium apple, for example, has 19 grams of sugar, while a medium orange contains 12 grams. Additionally, bananas contain several grams of fiber, which can help control blood sugar — and which more processed sugary snacks like candy bars generally don't have. When they're unripe, too, they can have a super-low GI index. Don't write them off.

One of the most common myths around bananas is also one of the silliest. There's a longstanding belief that banana peels have some kind of psychoactive property, which stems from hoax news stories published in the 1960s in counter-cultural magazines like the Berkeley Barb. "Recipes" for smoking banana peels started cropping up in these magazines, stating that the peel may cause an effect akin to marijuana.

This rumor took off, and it wasn't long before banana peels became a go-to drug for underground communities. The problem, though, is that it doesn't actually do anything — and once people realised that smoking banana peels had no effect whatsoever, the fad quickly died down. The cultural legacy of smoking banana peels remained, though, and to this day there are a number people who have smoked them thinking that doing so will produce some mind-altering effect. Sorry everyone, but it really won't.