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We've seen a few interesting developments in fruit and vegetables recently, from non browning apples to non tearing onions, all developed to make our lives easier. Next up is Mongee, the banana with edible skin.
Mongee Bananas are the new bananas developed and grown in Japan, that can be eaten whole, skin and all, eliminating that slow to degrade peel.
Grown by D&T Farm, an agricultural Research company in Japan's Okayama Prefecture the unusual bananas are grown in extreme conditions using a freeze thaw awakening method, mimicking conditions akin to the ice age.
A post shared by Freedom Japanese Market (@freedomjapanesemarket) on Dec 25, 2017 at 1:47am PST
The magic is produced when the banana trees are planted and grown in an environment at a minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit, as opposed to 80 degrees Farenheit for normal bananas, which are then thawed and replanted.
The change in temperature encourages the plants to grow rapidly - in as little as 4 months - leaving the fruit with a lettuce like peel.
According to D&T’s website, Mongees are sweeter than normal bananas, with nearly five more grams of sugar per fruit. Spokesperson, Tetsuya says that Mongees’ peels don’t taste bitter like other bananas. Infact, the newsteam at RocketNews 24 report an altogether more appealing pineapple type flavour.
Seeing as it takes up to two years for a normal banana skin to decompose naturally, this could be an interesting development in the ongoing global battle against food waste.
Unfortunately, we're not going to be sinking out teeth into banana skin anytime soon as only 10 bananas are produced per week according to RocketNews 24, with one banana costing a whopping 648 yen (about US$5.75).
Of course, you can eat normal banana peel anyway - here are 10 things you can do with banana peel
