Bananas are the perfect snack. Not only are they sweet and delicious, but they are easy to carry around, so you can take them anywhere. Best of all, bananas provide different things that the human body needs!
Bananas grow best in warm places that get lots of rain. They grow on plants that look like trees. The banana plant, however, is considered a herb rather than a tree because it doesn't have a strong , woody stem（茎，干）. The plants can grow as high as 30 feet. When they reach their full height, flowers grow out from the stem. These flowers produce bananas.
Two or three times each year, the plants produce fruit. The bananas grow together, which seem like "hands". A hand is made up of 10 to 20 bananas. Growers sometimes call bananas "fingers". Each bunch（丛） of bananas has about 15 hands, and so a whole bunch may have as many as 200 bananas and can weigh more than 100 pounds.
After about three months, the bananas are ready to be picked. At this point, they still aren't the sunny yellow color of bananas. Farmers pick them when they're green. That's how they're shipped to stores. They turn yellow along the way and are ready to be sold.
If you love bananas, you've got a lot of company. Americans have been enjoying bananas since the first shipment arrived in the United States in 1876. Today, American eat more bananas than any other fruit. More bananas are sold than apples and grapes together. Every American eats over 26 pounds of bananas each year!
