Smile-breaks
Grab a banana
Bananas! I love 'em. They're so low tech. No files to open, no apps to download—just snap the top and peel. Sometimes you have to remove those stringy things. If you have some milk handy and a knife, you can slice them and drown them in milk with a sprinkle of sugar on top. Don't forget the bowl.
If you're into simplicity and back-to-nature and all that, you can eat them plain while you're reading your Kindle or surfing your iPad or iPhone. They don't work too well if you're texting, Instagramming or Facebooking—you need at least one hand free for peeling the skin away from the edible area and one for holding the banana and that leaves no available thumbs for the tiny keyboard on your phone or iPad, which as a rule, requires a couple of thumbs and a digit or two.
I never heard of a banana getting hacked. Probably because they are non-technical and never wander out into cyberspace. They do get off-color once in a while, but they let you know gently by turning a soft mushy brown color that, in my opinion, is a whole lot better than those harsh red ERROR messages that electronic gadgets flash in your face.
Yep, bananas are healthy for you. Whereas I'm not sure that iPads, Androids and iPhones are all that good for your health. Did you know that if you combine a banana with three scoops of ice cream, choosing three different fonts—oops, flavors!—chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, and drizzle Hershey syrup and strawberries and pineapples over the top and squirt oodles of whipped cream over that and pling! a maraschino cherry in the middle and sprinkle the whole thing with nuts. . . Bet you didn't know that'll give you 25% of your Required Daily Allowance (RDA) of calcium, 35% RDA of carbohydrates, 35% RDA fiber, 6% RDA protein, 5% iron and that isn't all. You'll have 18% RDA Vitamin A, 20% RDA Vitamin B6 and 15% Vitamin C.
Okay. Okay. Calories: 745. Fat: 50% RDA. Personally, I don't concentrate on the calcium and protein and all that stuff too much. The seeping of the dark Hershey syrup into the melting strawberry ice cream requires all my attention.
Honest, the figures are real, given certain generous measurements of servings. I had to give a serious speech when I was in Toastmasters, the speakers' club, so I looked it all up and did the calculations and it only took three weeks to gather the information I needed to justify the eight banana splits I ate last year. Banana split? Serious? Well, that depends on your opinion. . .
I also learned about something else that bananas have: FOS (fructooligosaccharides), which is supposed to prevent all kinds of illnesses and unfavorable health conditions and is found in hardly any other foods, but I don't want to get technical here so we'll skip the FOS and get back to the simpler side of bananas, which is especially nice when the banana is paired with fresh strawberries during strawberry season.
There's no Banana Season that I know of. I guess that's because bananas grow all year round, so it would have to be Banana Year and there would be no time that we weren't eating bananas so bananas would become endangered—and if not protected, they would become extinct. Which might really happen if too many of you like my idea about combining bananas with all those nutritious foods I mentioned. But you've probably noticed—bananas are everywhere. At coffee shops, Seven-Elevens, seminars…
So if your iPhone or iPad is driving you bananas – grab one!
