Bananas grow in large, pendulous bunches in "hands" of around fifteen "fingers" each. Each banana is curved, largely because its early development was inside a curved bract on the flower structure.

Some supermarket chains reject bananas that are "too bent", resulting in wastage of otherwise perfect fruit.

No more! UBCo's Banana Unbender consists of a solar- powered (Bananas grow in sunny areas, after all) motor from which the cut bunch is suspended for a few days, after it is cut from the tree.

A weight is attached to each banana and the motor started, spinning gently enough to prevent damage but quickly enough to gradually pull the bend out of each banana, making them straight and therefore more acceptable to wholesale buyers.

Come, Mr Tallyman, tally me banana!
-- UnaBubba, Apr 12 2012

Pond_20Skater_20exoskeleton Meanwhile, back in the Entomology Lab [spidermother, Apr 17 2012]

Beautiful women eat bananas?
-- UnaBubba, Apr 12 2012


I don't dare look at that link while I'm in this office. Sorry.
-- UnaBubba, Apr 12 2012


UBBU
-- ytk, Apr 12 2012


I expect that bananas with a reverse bend would be a winner.
-- ldischler, Apr 12 2012


They would be "backnanas", I should imagine?
-- UnaBubba, Apr 12 2012


The same concept has been applied to another thing, for which banana is a common euphamism. I'll let yall figure that one out on google.
-- DIYMatt, Apr 12 2012


Gee thanks. You're all heart and class, aren't you?

I'm not sure that was to iron out kinks... rather, to enhance them?
-- UnaBubba, Apr 12 2012


Telescopic bananas would also lower shipping costs.
-- tatterdemalion, Apr 12 2012


Microscopic bananas would confer the same benefit.
-- UnaBubba, Apr 12 2012


//Microscopic bananas//

Otherwise known as seeds.
-- ldischler, Apr 12 2012


Which they have within their flesh, though few know it.
-- UnaBubba, Apr 12 2012


flesh bananas...now you're talking!
-- xandram, Apr 12 2012


You seem to be the one who suggested them, [xandram].
-- UnaBubba, Apr 12 2012


Well, that's where the seeds are.
-- xandram, Apr 12 2012


Most commercial bananas don't have seeds - cavendish and lady finger, for example, are sterile cultivars, like sultana grapes. Actual banana seeds are pretty hard to miss. They are the size of a small pea, shiny black, and hard enough to hurt your tooth. They're conveniently located near the base of the banana, though, so they aren't really a big problem.

(Source: My own experience. I found a wild banana patch in Thailand. The bananas were small, but delicious, and had seeds as described.)
-- spidermother, Apr 13 2012


You'll also often find very small, non-viable, seeds in many commercial bananas. They're little black numbers, about the size of a poppyseed.
-- UnaBubba, Apr 13 2012


Fair point; to me, though, "seed", unqualified, means a proper, viable seed. Otherwise greengrocers would have to advertise "Very small, non-viable seeded watermelon's".
-- spidermother, Apr 13 2012


True. Though I shudder to think how that would end up being written in Greengrocerese, or whatever that weird language of theirs, with the odd punctuation, is called.

I have seen one of the larger seeds you mention, about buckshot-sized, in a red banana that was growing in our garden.
-- UnaBubba, Apr 13 2012


Has this anything to do with Queenslanders being nicknamed "Banana-Benders"?
-- pertinax, Apr 14 2012


Yep. we're the ones who put the bends in them in the first place. You sure you wanna know how?
-- UnaBubba, Apr 15 2012


no
-- pertinax, Apr 16 2012


That's a double no.
-- blissmiss, Apr 16 2012


There's actually a variety of banana, developed in the 1970s, called "Golden Shot", which has no (or very little) curvature. It was marketed with the slogans "Straight from A to Banana" and "Give it to me straight".

It was not a hit with consumers, but did for a while enjoy success with producers of banana-derived products such as banana chutney and banana jerky.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 16 2012


"banana jerky"

Can't believe you went there, [Max].
-- UnaBubba, Apr 16 2012


Crossing that fine line between just bad taste, and ultimate tasteless tastelessness.
-- blissmiss, Apr 17 2012


It's better than what's going on over in the Entomology Lab.
-- Alterother, Apr 17 2012


//Entomology Lab// Link provided that the Children of Tomorrow may understand.
-- spidermother, Apr 17 2012


blushing now.
-- blissmiss, Apr 17 2012



random, halfbakery