Have you ever struggled to open your banana, bending the rubbery stem this way and that like a bad actor in an infomercial as you search for that elusive snap? As it turns out, we may be opening our bananas the wrong way, as evidenced by our closest banana-eating relatives, monkeys.
Peeled banana image via Shutterstock
We originally posted about this back in 2009, as we would have failed at our lifehacking duties if we hadn’t already told you that you’ve been doing such a simple thing wrong your whole life. Of course, the way most people open a banana — by snapping the stem first and using it to peel the skin — works at least 80 per cent of the time, but you might like to know this technique for your particularly stubborn bananas:
Pinching the bottom and peeling from there is by far the easiest way to peel a banana, if not the most common. There are a few advantages to doing it this way, however. You can get rid of the gross part at the bottom first, instead of accidentally biting into it when you were trying to get the last little bit of your delicious fruit. It also means you have a little handle (the stem) when you do get to the bottom, meaning less chance of getting banana goop all over your hands as you eat.
Lifehacker’s Classic Hacks is a regular segment where we dig up the most popular, useful and offbeat advice from our archives and update it for your modern lifestyle.
Comments
4 responses to “Classic Hacks: How To Open A Banana The Right Way”
…did he seriously try to bite into the stem to open it? What the fuck is going on here? Peeling a banana is never that difficult.
I call shenanigans.
After watching the video, my mind feels so dirty now. It reminds me of something, that I can’t think of right now…
FFS. As if there is a “right” way…
But now he is stuck with the bad tasting little black bit from the “bottom” to eat first. Openning from the stem allows for you to leave that bit behind and throw it away with the peel.
Did anyone else notice he has monkeys on his pants?