Between ruby chocolate Kit Kat bars, glitter cappuccinos and raw egg coffee, we think we’ve seen everything when it comes to new and sometimes strange food creations. But now there’s a new strand of banana with edible peels, and it’s, well, b-a-n-a-n-a-s.
D&T Farm, a Japanese agricultural research company, has introduced “the Mongee,” slang for “incredible” in Japanese, a banana with a peel meant to be munched on instead of trashed. This new variation of fruit was created using an extreme freezing and thawing process.
D&T Farm spokesperson Tetsuya Tanaka told The New York Post that the idea began as merely a research hobby for technical development manager Setsuzo Tanaka. Normally, bananas are grown in temperatures around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. These scientists planted and grew banana trees in a controlled environment of -76 degrees. The trees are then thawed and replanted at a warmer temperature, which prompts the fruit to grow more rapidly.
This extreme change also causes the Mongees to have completely edible peels, but the peels aren’t the traditional banana peels consumers are accustomed to. According to Tetsuya, these new peels have a texture not unlike lettuce. According to the company’s website, the new bananas are also sweeter than regular bananas, tasting a bit like pineapple, and contain five more grams of sugar in each fruit.
However, most of the public won’t be taste testing these new bananas anytime soon. Due to the sky-high production costs, only 10 Mongees go on sale each week in Okayama, Japan, and costs around $5.75 each, The New York Post reports.
Though Tetsuya says D&T Farm is considering eventual exportation to the U.S., for now we’re just going to have to make due with our regular old bananas.
