apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

You can also make fertilizer for houseplants. Put a peel in a big jar (the huge pickle jar- size) and cover in water. Then you just pour some into your watering can (not a lot, maybe an inch or two), top with water, and refill the jar. One peel will last nearly forever and, surprisingly enough, doesn't get completely disgusting.

Hmm I don't think I would polish shoes or plants unless I start liking fruit flies.

I registered just to comment on this:

"4. Pain Reliever: The oil in a banana peel will help relieve the pain from burns and scratches."

Sorry, folks, but you never want ANY kind of oil to be applied to a burn. Oil traps heat in the tissue to which it is applied. Don't use butter, oily creams, nothing of the sort. Yes, some of those oily preparations DO relieve the pain, but they still trap the heat.

If you get burnt, the best treatment is cold water. I want to say ice water, but research has pretty well proved that ice and ice water do additional damage to the burn area.

If a burn is so minor that I can just shake the pain off, I don't treat it at all. If it's more serious, I get cold tap water, add a few ice cubes and immerse the burn.

NO OIL OF ANY KIND!!!!!

Feel free to question a doctor, or to google around the net for burn treatments - don't take my word.

Runaway - I'm no doctor and I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to "internet cures", but doing a simple Google search on will yield lots of information from different sources validating banana peels for warts and burns.

I don't think I'd try it for a serious burn but I might give it a shot for a wart or sunburn - it falls in the same realm as aloe.

I reuse the peels in apple maggot/coddling moth traps. It's part of the recipe to make natural traps to hang in the trees for the pests. I've also put them inside inverted, plastic pop bottles with a little insecticide and water. The bugs crawl in for the banana peel, hit the insecticide and die inside. It keeps the nasty chemicals out of my garden and does a great job attracting black-spot beetles.

My kitchen use is rather strange but it works amazingly well. When I buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts and want to bake them without drying out the surface, I put a banana peel over the top of each piece. The peel is a nifty replacement for the skin and keeps the breast meat more tender.

lona-
I wouldn't use banana peel in the oven, the peels have very high concentrations of pesticide. Here is a link to a reputable article from 2008 regarding pesticide concentrations (on the skin) of bananas harvested in Spain- It is my understanding that this type of chemical use is standard practice.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T6R-4T2M639-2&_user=917153&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1012782220&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000047943&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=917153&md5=af9978c0f2bba53e2b69c04cf14ca182

In a conversation with a friend who was a former prison guard, I used a banana peel as an exemplar of something unlikely to cause harm (other than slipping on it of course). My friend quickly informed me that as guards they would gather up the banana peels after people had eaten the bananas because when the peels harden they can be sharpened and used for all sorts of things - some of which are not so nice. There you are - straight from the prison-industrial complex - who knew?

My husband is a correctional officer, and hadn't ever heard of that use for dried banana peels...

Anywho, I just started watching Weeds, so today I've learned EIGHT uses for banana peels... I was a little scared the one from the show was going to make this list...

We just compost our banana peels (the pesticides Wendi posts about gives me pause though), would feed them to the chickens, but they won't touch them. Maybe they're waiting for them to dry, so they can stage a prison break! Yikes!

Another great tip from Scott Naturals is to use old coffee grinds and tea for plant fertilizer.

The Anarchist Cookbook had a recipe for banana peel psychedelics, or so I've heard. Ahem.

Wow, there's a few there that I've not heard of before. I don't have any shoes that require shining but I'm curious to try polishing a few plants. I already have a fruitfly problem so.... and yes, I came across the AT blog about eradicating them and found that the vinegar trap proved to be hopeless.... and smelly..... where as, freshly made hot beverages....

If you're worried about pesticides, buy organic bananas and, I don't know if you have Fairtrade endorsed produce, or an equivalent, Stateside but, when farmers are paid a decent price, it affords them the opportunity to raise crops in a way that is better for them and their environment. It's not just the bananas that are exposed to those chemicals and not only adult labourers who are exploited.

Since you asked - I used a banana peel to remove a wart on my knee about 10 years ago. Each night for about a week I secured a small piece of peel with regular bandage, wore it to bed and it faded. It has not reappeared.

Banana peel pie
12 soup spoon flour
butter
6 banana peel chopped
4 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
10 soup spoon sugar
Combine flour, sugar and baking powder.
grease the cake tin with butter.
Put 1/2 of cream on the cake tin, put a tier of banana peels and put the other 1/2 of cream over.
Blend eggs and cover the pie
Bake 20 minutes
.

Banana peels are like a miracle drug when it comes to wart removal, seriously. Banana peels duct tape= ultimate wart removal system.

Yes, I polished my boots the other day here at work!

If you polish your shoes with the peel, do they end up smelling like banana?

Since others are bringing up a dead post, while would anybody be sniffing your shoes?

Rubbing the inside of a banana peel on a bruise makes the discoloration fade quickly.