People are baffled to discover that bananas are actually berries

21 October 2023 , 12:50

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Bananas actually belong to the berry family (Stock Photo) (Image: Getty Images/Glowimages RF)

There are a few foods that don’t actually belong in the categories we would assume, and you might be surprised to hear that bananas are one of them. Technically, bananas are berries, but few people would be likely to automatically count them as being part of that family.

They don’t share the appearance of other bite-sized fruits like strawberries and raspberries, which - to make matters even more confusing - aren’t actually berries at all, despite having the word in their name.

Bananas are by no means the only fruit that don’t seem to fit into their respective families: with tomatoes and peppers also technically being fruits, despite the fact that the way we eat them is like vegetables. Avocados, cucumbers and pumpkins also technically come under the umbrella of berries - even though very few of us would assume them to be.

But before we get too deep into the berry sub-category, and why everything you thought you knew about berries might not actually be correct, let's go right back to the beginning. Fruits are the ovary of a plant that has repined and defined by containing seeds that reproduce the plant.

Scientifically, a berry is defined as a fruit that comes from a single ovary and has a soft skin and fleshy centre. However, the word berry came into use long before the botanical classification did, which is why things like strawberries are called berries, but don't technically fall into this sub-category of fruit because they come from flowers that have multiple ovaries.

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Berries have three main components: firstly there is the soft outer skin of the fruit, which is called the exocarp. Then comes the middle of the fruit, a fleshy layer called the mesocarp. Finally, there is the endocarp, which contains the seeds.

Bananas have the soft skin that we peel off, the fleshy middle we eat and contain seeds in the central, inner part of the fruit - they're so small you may not even notice them - but all put together this means that they meet all the requirements of being a berry, according to this botanical classification.

There are many other fruits that you would not think were berries, but also meet this set of classification, including: grapes, kiwis, aubergines, and tomatoes. So, simply put, everything that counts as berry still comes under the over-arching category of fruit, but not all fruits meet the botanical criteria to be berries.

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Emma Mackenzie