Science has gone bananas!
According to the New York Post, a Japanese agricultural research company has developed a banana with a surrounding skin that’s entirely edible. The new banana, called the Mongee (pronounced mon-gay) is produced using extreme freezing and thawing that causes the fruit to grow rapidly, leaving the skin thin, like lettuce, instead of the thick, rubbery casing we are used to.
In order to grow the freaky fruit, first the trees must be planted and grown in an environment with the temperature controlled at negative 76 degrees Fahrenheit. At just the right moment, the plants are left to thaw and replanted. The rapid change in temperature causes the plant to grow quickly — stunting the fruit’s ability to develop it’s trademark thick peel. Instead, the fruit has a thin “lettuce”-like texture, explained D&T Farm’s spokesman Tetsuya Tanaka. Regular bananas require temperatures of around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The idea for Mongees, Tanaka said, began as a research “hobby” and evolved from there.
Pun alert: That all sounds appealing, but what do they taste like?
Journalists at RocketNews24 gave them a taste-test last month and reported a “very strong tropical flavor,” like a pineapple. They said the skin was “fairly easy to eat” with “no strange texture.” The team said there “wasn’t much flavor to the skin,” but deemed the skin actually edible. For comparison, they also taste-tested the skin of an ordinary banana from Ecuador, which was described as “far too tough and fibrous … bitter and astringent.”
Unfortunately, Mongees won’t be available in the United States anytime soon. Only about 10 of them go on sale each week at an Okayama prefecture department store in western Japan. The bananas are selling for around $6 apiece because production costs are so high.
But there is hope for fruit fans.
“We are also considering export [to the U.S.], but it is likely [to take a while,]” Tetsuya said.
Also see, Man orders gluten-free meal on airplane, receives a single banana.