This Is How The Strings Of A Banana Form And That’s Why You Don’t Want To Eat Them | Cook & Eat

“Banana threads have a scientific name: we call them vascular bundle systems,” explains Sébastien Carpentier, who studies the properties of bananas. He is a scientist and group leader of the banana team within Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT at KU Leuven.

“These are the systems that bring all the nutrients from the plant to the fruit. The plant produces a lot of sugars on the basis of light and extracts nutrients such as potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus from the soil. All of these things have to go into the fruit, and that’s why there’s the vascular bundle system.”

The strings are mostly in the skin, but sometimes they start to come loose so they get in the way when you peel a banana. ,,The skin is initially green and makes some sugar, but as the banana ripens, it softens. Then it detaches more easily from the fruit. And the threads come off. The riper the banana, the more threads you will have.

You can just eat those threads, says Carpentier. “But they’re not exactly tasty. Because this system contains a lot of fiber with, for example, latex and tannins. You can also taste the latter in wine. It’s a bit sharp on your teeth. This n It’s not unhealthy, but rather bitter, so the trick is not to let the banana get too ripe.

Bananas are very tasty, even in a baby’s or toddler’s fruit paste. Did you just smash the wires through the mush? It’s allowed by Carpentier, because there’s really nothing unhealthy in that. ,,But because they are bitter, so porridge may be a little less popular. So it’s not a bad idea to remove them.”