On The Life and Death of a Banana

So much of trying to be a grownup is making good decisions: going to bed at a reasonable hour instead of staying up all night mindlessly scrolling, getting a little fresh air and exercise instead of taking a second nap that day, eating fruits and vegetables instead of only scarfing carbs. The problem with being a grownup is that pretty much every right decision is SO much harder than the wrong decision. Mindlessly scrolling is easy as hell. Taking that second nap is as simple as pie. Eating just carbs is as uncomplicated as basic arithmetic. On the other hand, one of the most difficult parts of eating fresh and healthy foods is that to make sure they’re healthy…they have to be fresh! And having fresh foods means you’re always on that razor's edge of having nasty rotten food all over your house. This dilemma is never clearer than when you’re standing in the grocery store, staring at a bushel of green and yellow curvy spawn of Musa acuminate and Musa balbisiana, debating the life and death state of a banana.

I actually really like a lot of fruits and veggies. Spinach is pretty great nutritionally and doesn’t taste too bad. Green beans are incredibly easy to make delicious. Raspberries are scrumptious when they’re fresh. Apples…man don’t get me started on how much I love apples. When it comes to bananas though, I’m conflicted. They’re really good when they’re ripe. They’re easy to deal with considering they come in their own little wrappers. They go with so many things from shakes to cereal to peanut butter sandwiches.

The thing about bananas, though, is they’re kinda like a bunch (haha, get it? A bunch…) of little inconsequential time bombs. When you’re buying bananas, you have to do graduate-level mathematics to figure out how many you want, how often you eat them, when you’re going to eat them, and then cross-reference all of this information with the level of ripeness available! Are you planning on eating bananas a few days from now? Maybe grab a few green guys. Want one today and one tomorrow? Grab two yellow ones. Are you going to eat somewhere between 3 and 6 bananas over the next week and a half? Well, now you’re buying an entire color palette going from emerald green to sunflower yellow!

Once you’ve solved this puzzle straight out of Greek mythology, you have to wait and see if you actually know yourself as well as you say you do. Maybe you thought these were later bananas but this afternoon you find yourself with a hankering for a little tropical treat but you’re face to face with a tough, green, hardly-a-treat, banana. Tragedy.

On the other hand, maybe you way overestimated how many protein shakes you’re going to make and a week later you have 4 very sad, very brown, little radioactive fruits (did you know what all potassium-containing bananas emit radioactivity [of course, it’s an incredibly low dose but still!]?) At least if you missed on this side of the ripeness target you have the consolation prize of a key ingredient of banana bread…but now you’ve completely failed to eat healthy! The misery never ends!

What’s your Gordian knot of a produce purchase? Blackberries? Avocados? Bagged lettuce?

Lastly, as a side note, two of my most dedicated readers and best friends (and coolest married couples) made a kickass short film! Check it out and watch their YouTube page for more content!