Chew On This: Fun Facts About Food

The banana tree is not a true fruit at all but a giant herb and the banana is actually its berry. A banana plant produces only one bunch or “hand” in its life, but that bunch may have between 100 to 400 bananas. Despite its phallic shape, the banana is sterile and no fertilization takes place in the banana flowers. A banana plant grows when one of its shoots is planted.

Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne. 1993. A History of Food. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.