I’m not a picky eater, I will happily give anything served to me a go, and I’m very proud of this fact. There is one thing I won’t touch though, and that is the hard, black bit at the tip of a banana. Seriously, it’s the only food that sets off my gag reflex.
First thing’s first, I have no idea what that thing is actually called. The most common answer is the Bananus, but there’s no way that’s scientific. I don’t actually think it has a name at this point, so I’m going to go with bananus.
So what actually is the bananus?
One of the most common urban legends is that it’s spider eggs, but thank god that’s a myth. According to Reddit, it could be a seed that the plant tried to dissolve, banana umbilical cord, or the underdeveloped parasitic twin of the banana. None of those are comforting, but also none of them are true.
Turns out it’s a leftover bit from when the banana was a flower, at least according to Annals of Botany.
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As for why it’s so goddam disgusting?
Sadly it’s safe to eat, so we can’t just say it’s poison and be done with it. This is a question that’s really hard to answer because everyone feels disgust about different things, but it really just comes down to two things: It has a weird texture, and tastes bitter compared to the rest of the fruit. Bad texture + different taste to what we were expecting = body assuming that it’s eaten something rotten and it needs to get rid of it right now.
There isn’t a lot of information out there about the gross tip of the banana. Probably because nobody actually wants to deal with one for longer than the 3 seconds it takes to pull out and throw in the bin, but there you go. It’s a gross, dead flower that tastes and feels like death. The more you know.
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