You Picked Bananas, So Here's a Better (?) Way to Peel Them

Okay, here it is; as picked by your votes, here's a trifling little entry about a better way to peel bananas. (Don't worry, I will be getting to the more useful entries, all in good time.)

The banana story was going around the big ole sphere o' blogs earlier this year (for example, see  here in BoingBoing from back in January). It was one of those memes (basically, an idea that grows legs) that popped up and then faded away pretty quickly.

There's not really that much to it -- instead of peeling it from the stem side, pinch it and peel it from the not-stem side:

Here, I'm pinching the banana. Note the stem is at the bottom.

Once you get it started, it's pretty much the same as peeling it the other way.

Here I am holding the peeled banana by the stem, which makes for a convenient handle.

Now, this is not really a new thing. Here's a Slate article from 2002 about it, that gets pretty deep into the pros and cons of peeling from each end. (Pro: Monkeys peel bananas this way. Con: Er, monkeys peel bananas this way.)

Also, here's another Web page from 2001, that uses the banana-peeling as an example for all sorts of tortured analogies about paradigm shifts and the like.

Personally, I think it's kind of amusing, and it's nice to use the stem as a handle, but I don't feel strongly about it either way. It's a useful alternative in case the stem won't break cleanly.

Try it for yourself and see.

On a photo note, I had to ask a cow-orker of mine to take the photos (since obviously, both of my hands were occupied).

Thanks -- Joe

Tag: banana, peeling bananas