You may have seen them too, those fun and heartwarming clips in which you are told a secret, for example about banana peels. Yes, banana peels. We usually throw them away, but it’s such a shame because guess what? The peels are full of the rich nutrients your plants crave! So don’t throw away this treasure trove of minerals or whatever. be clever!

It simply works. You cut the skin into pieces, then soak it overnight in water and then that water turns into a nutrient-rich source that you can offer your plants in a festive way. This makes them happy. Who wouldn’t want that?

I saw Like this clip And immediately he became infatuated. I have basil plants in the supermarket on my windowsill and everyone knows they are some kind of plant with a backpack. Without further care, the herb will turn into a bowl of dried herbs in no time. Plus, of course, I want to be smart.

So I cut up banana peels, soaked them in water until they formed a luscious brown elixir, and fed my basil plants. This is also necessary because these poor herbaceous plants are specially bred by the agricultural industry to fail, so that you have to quickly buy new ones. At least I had that too Read somewhere And it exactly matched what I had always thought. Typical capitalism: grow to destroy. We are all deceived, right?

After repeating this fertility ritual several times, doubts nevertheless crept in. Did you succeed? Did basil love banana smoothie anyway? Didn’t the grass taste like bananas, for example? But at the same time I held onto it because it felt like I was now overpowering the entire chain of the system with my secret home elixir. The agricultural industry, supermarket profits and their fate in general. You don’t want to ruin a good story.

Until I saw an article in the mainstream media titled Disturbing ‘Houseplant myths: An expert sorts fact from fiction“Oh no! I hardly dared read it. It turned out to be advice from someone.” Plant vulture. It sounds fishy, ​​but this clip that got me self-fertilizing was also from an influencer (with millions of followers), so I started with it anyway. Moreover, now I supposedly sensed from my banana water that something was wrong.

Sure enough, Fluencer calls homemade fertilizer “a complete waste of food and time. Sometimes it can have negative consequences for a plant.” Bananas contain a lot of potassium and people think that is how it ends up in their plants. “All of this is not true, and if it is true that the peel contains potassium, then that is not what plants need yet.” Potassium, I honestly have no idea what it is exactly but it sounded serious. Do my plants not deserve potassium?

I thought I could still find a shelter so that if it didn’t help it wouldn’t hurt. But the vegan influencer, who just published a book, like all influencers, stated that the method can even kill plants. If they get too much of a certain substance, they can go into an eating lock and get nothing at all. He claimed you just have to buy the fertilizer at the garden center. Now you are suspicious again because most influencers want you to buy something. I googled his name. A self-taught artist with a quarter of a million followers. In addition, he is a well-known haircut photographer, which is another business that is growing.

I looked at the edge of the window. Fortunately, there was no indication of a dining slot. But I did not know then that in fact it was much worse, I only found out when I continued my own research in this completely unknown area for me.

I searched for it on Google. All the first pages of search results are filled with the same story or variations of it. Plants benefit greatly from banana peels. The truth is perfect filling for all kinds of sections in the sites and the sections are a feast for the eyes. Just as the influencer seduced me with its catchy clip, this story does it all over the place. Such snacks are like weeds on the internet and the story is constantly growing

I read and devoured. “The Secret” had many variations. According to some sources, the fact that the potassium—if it’s really there—will start swimming in the water mist on its own. What you can do is cut banana peels into very small pieces, dry them and add them to the soil. But this is not recommended for indoor plants as it can attract fruit flies.

Fruit flies! the horror. I didn’t have to think about it. I’d rather eat dried basil for the rest of my life.

But now I also read another reason not to use this technique. Banana peels are full of pesticides that end up in your water and therefore on your plants that you can no longer eat. So you can only use organic bananas. I thought and crossed the supermarket shelf in my mind. Fair Trade, which of course is not directly organic. And sometimes Chiquita crawls through me. Who knows what I’ve been receiving in recent months with my homemade pesto from locally grown plants? Suddenly Basil sounded like a dark poison name.

The problem was that sites that reported such critical information often had a connection to the factory business or worse. “If you want to switch to an environmentally friendly alternative, it is best to use primarily organic fertilizers, such as our xxxx global organic fertilizer.” certainly.

Finally I found the advice of Hub Stoffels of United Fuchsia and Tub Plants Lovers (VFKL), an expert who has even been awarded a royal award for his love of plants. It is stated that the crusts, if they are organic, can be used and Then he explains How is it done. This turned out to be more complicated than it appears in the influencer’s clips. Moreover, you can use fertilizer once a month at most. So the peels of the other 14 bananas I eat per month can go in the trash. It turns out that fighting global food waste on your own does very little.

I confess, I was very disappointed that it took me some effort to surrender to the knowledge gained. I didn’t quite get it and there is no better breeding ground for uncertainty than misunderstanding. Recently, it also took some effort to understand how this works with the TikTok mirror. Whereas my dad was actually a mirror maker and I thought they didn’t have any secrets from me.

Meanwhile, I came across something completely different, but in the same vein. Why is there talk of lemon peel, apple peel, mango peel but all of a sudden a banana peel? Another puzzle! I decided to tackle the matter differently this time. I asked Only on Twitter. After all, there all people are familiar with the language.

I was expecting a simple explanation but none of this. And soon the case exploded. The data tripped over each other without me realizing what the spelling was. However, the Taloni scholars were soon identified as the angry culprits. Without them the world would still be orderly and happy.

The Internet is a big banana peel.