The banana plant is the largest herbaceous flowering plant. Banana plants are often mistaken for trees. Bananas have a "false stem" (called "pseudostem"), which is made by the lower part of the leaves. This pseudostem can grow to be two to eight meters tall. Each pseudostem grows from a corm. A pseudostem is able to produce a single bunch of bananas. After fruiting, the pseudostem dies and is replaced. When most bananas are ripe, they turn yellow or, sometimes, red. Unripe bananas are green.
Banana leaves grow in a spiral and may grow long and wide. They are easily torn by the wind, which results in a familiar, frayed look.
The banana fruits grow from a banana blossom in hanging clusters, also called a "bunch" or "banana stem". The fruits grow in rows called "tiers" or "hands". There can be as many as twenty fruits to a hand, and as many as twenty tiers in a bunch. A bunch usually weighs between 30 and 50 kilograms (65 to 110 pounds).
A single fruit weighs about 125 grams (4.4 ounces) on average; about three quarters of this is water.
Each banana (or "finger") has a protective outer layer (called "peel" or "skin"). There is a fleshy part inside that readily spilts into three segments. It is the only known tri-segmented fruit in the world. Both the skin and inner part can be eaten. Western cultures generally eat the inside raw and throw away the skin. Some Asian cultures eat both the skin and the inside cooked. Each fruit has many "strings" that run between the skin and the inner part.
Bananas have a lot of vitamin B, vitamin C, and potassium.
Bananas are grown in at least 107 countries. The banana species growing in the wild have fruits with many hard, large seeds, but almost all bananas grown to be eaten have seedless fruits. Bananas are classified either as dessert bananas or as green cooking bananas. Almost all export bananas are of the dessert types. Only about ten to fifteen percent of all production is for export. Dessert bananas change their color and usually turn yellow, when they are ripe; plantains and bananas generally used for cooking stay green. Certain bananas have other colors when ripe.
The countries that produce the most bananas include India, Brazil, China, Ecuador and the Philippines. The top five countries that exported bananas were Ecuador, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Colombia and Guatemala. The United States, the European Union and Japan buy the most bananas. Bananas are among the most valuable agricultural export products; They provided about sixty percent of export earnings of Saint Lucia and about twelve percent of the Gross Domestic Product of the country, between 1994 and 1996.
Some people are allergic to bananas. There are two basic forms of these allergies. The first is known as oral allergy syndrome. Within an hour of eating a banana, swelling starts inside the mouth or throat. This allergy is related to allergies caused by pollen, like that of the birch tree. The other is similar to latex allergies. It causes urticaria and potentially serious upper gastrointestinal symptoms.
The fibre gained from the banana plant has been used to make textiles for a long time. In Japan, bananas have been grown to be used for clothing and in the house since at least the 13th century. In the Japanese system, the leaves and shoots are cut from the plant periodically to make sure they are soft. The harvested shoots must first be boiled in lye to prepare the fibres for the making of the yarn. These banana shoots produce fibres of varying degrees of softness. They can be used for yarns and textiles of different qualties, and for specific uses. For example, the outermost fibres of the shoots are the coarsest - they are good for tablecloths. The softest innermost fibres are desirable for kimono and kamishimo. This traditional Japanese banana cloth making process has many steps, all performed by hand.
Another system is used in Nepal. There the trunk of the banana plant is harvested instead. Small pieces of this trunk are then softened. The fibres are extracted mechanically, bleached, and dried. They are then sent to the Kathmandu Valley, where high-end rugs are produced. These rugs have a texture and general qualities similar to that of silk. These banana fibre rugs are woven by traditional Nepalese hand-knotted methods.
A medium-sized banana will provide around 320–400 mg of potassium, which meets about 10% of your daily potassium needs. Potassium helps your body maintain a healthy heart and blood pressure. In addition, bananas are low in sodium. The low sodium and high potassium combination helps to control high blood pressure.
Banana fiber is also used to make "banana paper". There are two different kinds of banana paper: paper made from the bark, and paper made from the fibre and from unused fruits.
Biel/Bienne, Switzerland
Biel/Bienne (official name; "Biel" is German, "Bienne" is French) is an industrial town in Switzerland. It is in the part of Switzerland named Bern and near the city also named Bern. The town is known for many companies that make watches and machines.
The town of Biel, the capital of Swiss watch-making, lies at the end of Lake Biel, at the foot of the Jura Hills in the Lake Region.
The wonderful old town with its town church and its location as the gateway to the three Jura lakes (Lakes Biel, Lake Neuchâtel and Lake Murten) with vineyards on the hillsides and extensive vegetable cultivation make the town very attractive.
Biel is the only town in Switzerland in which German and French are spoken side by side We can feel the relaxed mentality here coming from the mixture of these three languages.
Biel was awarded the Wakker Prize in 2004 by the Swiss Heritage Society for the way it conserved its 20th century buildings, especially the ‘new construction’ from the 1920s and 30s.
Swatch, Rolex, Omega, Tissot, Movado and Mikron all come from this town. But Biel has also become important in the field of other industries and in communication.
It is possible to travel on various routes along the lakes on passenger boats in summer. The day trip through all three Jura lakes is especially popular. Of course there are all types of water sports on Lake Biel.
The town of Biel was built by the Prince-Bishop of Bale between 1220 and 1230. The old town is the smallest part of Biel with only . Most buildings there still look as in the 18th century. The biggest part of the old town is without any traffic. There aren’t any big stores or industries or any big companies. Each Saturday there is a market. The castle, “the ring” and the theatre are very popular. The town church is on the “Ringplatz” and was built between 1451 and 1470.There they burned the witches in the 18th century. From the 6 medieval city gates only one and two towers survived.
The entire town of Biel is part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites. Several individual buildings in the old town have also been protected for their cultural heritage.
The Reformed City Church is one of the most important late-Gothic buildings in the Canton of Bern. The church has a main floor, two second floors and four small chapels. There are some wall-paintings in the church. Most windows are among the oldest ones in Switzerland. The church was first written about in an index in 1228. After a horrible fire in the old town the church was destroyed. It was rebuilt between 1367 and 1451. The town church got on a new organ on 6th November 2011. The church was closed for more than half a year to put the new organ in and to improve the inside of the church. It cost about 1,74 million Swiss francs. The old organ was sent to Poland.
About 57% of the people in Biel speak German as their mother tongue. The remaining 43% speak French as their mother tongue. That is why the city has two names.
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