Do I need to wash bananas?

Who is a stranger to a banana these days? A satisfying, moderately sweet and relatively inexpensive fruit with a bunch of useful properties is a favorite of many Russians. But the question is: why wash a banana before eating? Yes, because the peel is not perfectly clean, but tearing off the tail, we skip the infection to the sweet flesh.

The benefits of peel

The protective shell of a banana includes all the useful minerals and substances that the fruit itself:

• potassium,
• manganese,
• sodium,
• calcium,
• iron,
• phosphorus.

The main percentage is carbohydrates, in second place is fiber.

Harmful substances are also present in the composition, but in small quantities (however, you should not overeat or rub daily with a banana peel).

An interesting composition makes a banana peel useful in everyday life and industry. For example, after drying, the peel goes to ink, food coloring (thanks to tannins). Banana “waste” for pectin extraction is quite suitable, and it is an essential ingredient for thick jellies, jams, etc. And this is not a complete list. The banana peel is used even in traditional medicine and cosmetology.

Skin hazard

The main danger of the peel as a product is in its irritating effect on the mucous membranes, in the content of hydrogen cyanide, oxalates and saponins. All this is poison for the body.

In addition, the dense skin during transportation manages to grow dust, dirt and all kinds of microbes that are transmitted through the hands. Cholera, dysentery and other dangerous diseases are just the tip of the iceberg. In practice, viruses and germs of tonsillitis, acute respiratory infections and acute respiratory viral infections pose a much greater danger. Infection works the same way as in public places and at home: we do not control how many times we scratch our lips or rub our nose, before that we “feel” a banana (or any other object). This is the main reason why you need to wash bananas before eating.

There is a second factor. Although bananas are driven unripe, many of them manage to deteriorate, the peel becomes loose and permeable to infections. But the saddest thing is that flies and other parasites freely settle and breed in such “opened” bananas. Their larvae are almost invisible to the eye (they are born only 0.6 mm in length), they are white and merge with the pulp of the fetus.

Why quarantine surveillance matters
The Rosselkhoznadzor will best tell about parasites, which regularly returns batches of fruits (most often tangerines, but who knows how many larvae or mature flies have time to move to the neighboring boxes with bananas in the port). Tourists carrying tropical goodies bypassing the veterinary control are quite at risk for their health.

One of these unwanted "guests" is a humpback fly. Its larvae most often breed in rotten fruits, do not disdain mushrooms, meat and other products, do not become lazy to settle a purulent wound. There are species that can reproduce in the intestines or in human skin. In Novorossiysk and Gelendzhik, the main southern ports of Russia, these insects are regularly found in batches of fruits.

As long as the banana is whole and green, its flesh is safe, but eggs may already be laid on the peel. If the fruit lies down, darkens, the skin becomes soft, then the larva that hatched or crawled from a neighboring box will begin to feed with pleasure. When you open the banana - it will be either on your hands or on the pulp, and with it in the body. Recall, these are tropical parasites, and Russians have no immunity against them.

A quarantine inspection sends back to the tropics all parties in which it was possible to detect parasites, but even so, there remains the possibility of getting a "guest" in the house. This is especially true in the summer or southern regions.

How to protect yourself?

First of all, no need to panic.Lionfish are thermophilic insects, and an epidemic is unlikely to threaten the apartment. If the banana peel is whole, not damaged anywhere, it is enough to rinse it under running water - on a smooth surface the larva has nothing to catch on, and it can be easily washed off.

The ideal option is to pour steam over (by the way, this should be done in the store, but who knows if this procedure was missed). So, if there is a steam cleaner or steamer in the house, that’s fine. The jet will not boil the flesh, but peel the peel.

There is an option to flush the skin with Chlorhexidine, but this, perhaps, is already reinsurance. In general, it is enough to wash the fruit with soap.

Dried bananas cannot be bought by weight. It is impossible to wash such slices without spoiling their taste, and there is no guarantee how they were cleaned and stored. In factories, bananas are usually washed, and then opened, cut and dried in special cabinets. This is a ready-made snack.

purityis.decorexpro.com/en/ recommends that you either buy dried bananas in their original packaging or purchase fresh, not darkened fruits and dry them yourself, for example, in the oven. So you will be sure that no tropical flies hovered around.

Bananas are guests from the tropics, so it is possible that some exotic parasites and diseases swept their peel in stasis. And during the voyage and "rest" on the shelves, the fruit is still overgrown with dirt. To avoid intestinal problems (or worse), be sure to wash the bananas before eating.