生活小常識：香蕉上的白絲可以吃嗎？

Bananas are a wonderful source of potassium and are the perfect on-the-go snack.

香蕉中不僅富含鉀元素，而且它也是完美的即食小吃。

The only downside to the fruit are those irritating leathery strands - which are actually called 'phloem bundles' - that you get when you peel back a banana skin.
香蕉的唯一缺點是那些煩人的皮革線 - 實際上被稱為“韌皮束”，也就是剝香蕉皮的時候拉出來的絲兒。

But while those stringy bits may not be the most palatable, they are in fact very important - and we wouldn’t be able to eat bananas without them, according to Nicholas D. Gillitt, a US academic who shed some light on the mystery this week in a report by Huffington Post.

美國學者尼古拉斯.吉利特認為，盡管這些粘手的白絲可能不是最可口的，但實際上它們非常重要 - 如果沒有他們，我們將無法吃香蕉。他在本周赫芬頓郵報的一篇報道中闡明了這個秘密。

The clue as to why those strands are so important is in their name.
關(guān)于為什么這些白絲如此重要的線索全部蘊含于他們的名字之中。

Phloem is one of two types of transport tissue that you can find in all plants, and moves nutrients and other substances around the whole plant.

韌皮部是你可以在所有植物中找到的兩大類運輸組織之一，在整個植物周圍運輸營養(yǎng)物質(zhì)和其他物質(zhì)。

In a banana, the phloem strands are therefore the reason why all the nutrients can reach the whole of the fruit - which allows it to grow into the fruit we know of.

因此，正因為香蕉中韌皮部的存在，所有營養(yǎng)成分才可以輸送到整個水果— 這才使得它長成了我們所熟知的這種水果。

Nicholas D. Gillitt, who is director at the Dole Nutrition Institute explained to Huffington Post: ’Phloem bundles are necessary for the adequate disposition of nutrients throughout the plant.’

多爾營養(yǎng)研究所所長尼古拉斯.吉利特在赫芬頓郵報中解釋說：“韌皮束對于整個植物中營養(yǎng)的適當分布是必要的。”

The phloem bundles are completely edible and are just as nutritionally rich as the main part of the fruit, according to Dr Gillitt.

根據(jù)吉利特博士的說法，韌皮束完全是可食的，并且與水果的其他主要部分一樣營養(yǎng)豐富。
 

In fact, the strands probably contain a lot more fibre than the rest of the fruit, he says.

他說，事實上，這些白絲可能比水果的其它部分富含更多纖維。

It is possible to genetically modify the fruit to prevent strands from forming - but Gillitt says there is little point dedicating funds to research this when companies can better invest in coming up with disease-resistant food or fruit with higher nutritional content.

為防止形成白線，從基因上改變水果是可能的，但吉利特表示，當公司能夠更好地投資于抗病食品或具有較高營養(yǎng)成分的水果時，用于這些研究的資金將會少之更少。

好啦，今天的每日學英語就到這里啦，希望大家看到這篇文章后再吃香蕉的時候，對于白線能不能吃的問題就不要糾結(jié)啦，see u next time！