This is a banana (and some other things).
I have a stupid, love/hate relationship with bananas. I buy them because I KNOW they're good for me. They're portable. They're easy as a snack/meal solution. They're delicious with peanut butter. BUT. I kind of hate them. The smell can make me feel nauseated in about 2 seconds. The seeds* are terrible. The strings of stringiness that cover the sides of the fruit? Yuk. And the residue left on my teeth after eating one? Forget about it.But I buy them. And they go from just this side of ripe to overripe in about 5 seconds, so I only ever buy about two at a time. But still. If I don't eat them right away then they look like this and I don't want to go near them. Ugh. I have another one on my desk that looks exactly the same. I HAVE to eat it today.
I know, some of you are thinking "just make banana bread". And while, yes, banana bread has a much higher tolerance for the overripeness of bananas than I do, and though it is delicious, I don't want to eat a whole one by myself.
I have pretty much this same relationship with yogurt, which I also buy because I know it's good for me. I had some yesterday and I accidentally slopped some on my pants and I almost threw up into my hand. I was so grossed out by having to touch it. You're welcome for the visual.
I am not normal.
COMPLETELY UNRELATED: The Man and I watched Tapped last night. It's not porn, it's a documentary about bottled water and about how Nestlé and Coke and Pepsi are the most evil empires ever because they take the natural resources from small towns and sell those resources at 1900 times** the actual cost.
The good thing about this movie was that it gives you useful facts like:
Did you know that 40% of bottled water is just filtered tap water?
I think people should know this. They should know that the water from those bottles is in most cases no better than what comes out of their faucets.
The bad thing about this movie is that they (predictably) made the companies out to be evil baby-and-puppy-killers. Yes, the companies are making a lot of money from bottling something that is very cheap for people to come and take (or get at home). BUT! PEOPLE ARE BUYING BOTTLED WATER and that's why it's being sold. Just like reality tv and bobble-head dolls, there is a demand for this product.
I think what we need to do is educate people about maybe not buying the bottled water and maybe just filtering their tap water into reusable containers. I have a Klean Kanteen, for instance. And although I HATE*** that they do that cutesy thing where they change the "c"s to "k"s for absolutely no reason, I do appreciate the product. I don't have to throw away a million plastic bottles****.
If we all just stopped buying bottled water, stopped watching Jersey Shore, stopped buying tons of cheap plastic-y toys and things from China, maybe we'd be taking care of this problem already.
Soooo, that's just what I was thinking about that. Carry on.
*Do not even try to tell me that bananas have no seeds. They do. How do you think they reproduce? Immaculate conception? Oh, there are seeds. And they are annoying in my teeth.
**This is not an exaggeration. Or rather it's not my exaggeration. I'm taking this straight from the movie. I'm not sure of the veracity of their claims...
***In my opinion this is one of the worst things ever in the whole world. EVER.
****Plastic bottles that are manufactured using petroleum products. Bad!
3 comments:
I bet if you brought banana bread to, say, a rehearsal for a play, it would go pretty quickly... just sayin'.
Also, I buy bottled water. I do it because Poland Springs water just tastes better to me than my tap water, and because if I buy it I drink water and if I don't I drink soda.
"I think people should know this. They should know that the water from those bottles is in most cases no better than what comes out of their faucets."
Wouldn't that be a good thing? Tap water is great, as long as your town is actually following the federal restrictions on tap water. (Somerville always puts out literature on the good quality of its tap water.) My understanding is that if what comes out of your faucet isn't basically one of the safest things to drink you can get, someone's breaking the law... whereas bottled water is subjected to fewer federal restrictions on contaminants and whatnot. So any company selling filtered tap water is selling something safer than "glacier-fed spring water" or whatever, right?
*sigh* Really, I just like tap water. I can't even be bothered to filter it most of the time because that's slower. I think Somerville water tasted weird to me for the first couple months after I moved here, when I was getting used to it, and now it just tastes like water.
As for bananas. I was going to suggest putting them in smoothies. That is how I transform bananas from something kinda iffy into something DELICIOUS, without having to make a whole loaf of banana bread. For example, yesterday I made a smoothie of most of a banana, Trader Joe's mango sorbet, some vanilla soy milk, and plain yogurt. OMG SOOO GOOD. My most successful smoothie experiment in a while. In my experience any smoothie is always improved taste and texture-wise by a banana.
But then I got to the part where you said you feel the same way about yogurt. Ooops. Never mind. Also to make it portable you have to make them the night before and put them in some kind of portable container, and that does NOT have the convenience of a regular old banana, it's true. Which is why I basically only drink smoothies when I'm at home.
Gilana!
Perhaps I will make some banana bread after all. My brother also read this post and then requested some...
But there's just so much waste associated with bottled water :( Does a brita filter do anything to help the taste of the tap water in Somerville?
I have a water distiller at home so I usually drink that.
I guess I can't argue that much with taste, I just don't really taste a difference.
Ayelle!
The weird thing is, I occasionally DO make smoothies with bananas and yogurt. Because I make NO sense. But your suggestions are good. And OH MY GARSH mango sorbet? Yes!
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