Etiquette expert explains why the Queen eats bananas with a knife and fork

When it comes to eating a banana, there's a universal method every does by peeling back the skin and then consuming it - however when you're the Queen, it's not this simple.

Life as the Queen means living in prestigious palaces and being the UK's Head of State, but this lifestyle also comes with lessons in etiquette which explains why she has a strange royal banana-eating habit.

Darren McGrady, a former chef to the royal family from 1982 to 1993 revealed in his book Eating Royally, thatthe Queen doesn't eat a banana like the rest of us common folk but instead uses a knife and fork so she doesn't have to chomp on it "like a monkey."

In fact, there's a whole process where the Queen cuts the top and bottom of the fruit off and then slices the skin sideways to eat the contents.

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Now, this random royal fact has gone viral on TikTok due to a clip from etiquette expert William Hanson who explains and demonstrates why the Queen eats bananas in this unconventional way.

Sat at a table with a banana along with a knife and fork in front of him, Hanson said: "This is how the Queen would eat a banana.

“We don’t peel it like a primate.

“Instead, using a fork we hold it in place and then we cut off one end, then we cut off the other end.

“Then we turn the knife on its side and go into the skin like so, and then prising it open…

“And then cut a little bit off and eat like so.”

Since the clip was posted by user @downtown_t, it has received 5.9m views, 276,000 likes, along with thousands of comments from people who were baffled at how the Queen eats bananas.

One person said: "My life is already complicated. I can’t deal with another stress."

"'We don't peel it like a primate' my brother in Christ, we ARE primates," another person wrote.

Someone else added: "Too much work, can someone just peel it for him."

"You are making it harder... Life is already hard my goodness," a fourth person replied.

While this video has got someone questioning how Her Majesty eats other kinds of fruit and said: "Would love to see the Queen eat a durian or dragon fruit or something."

It certainly is an intriguing thought, but it's not the only odd food fact as the Queen does not want to risk getting food poisoning and so doesn't approve of certain foods. “No potatoes, rice or pasta for dinner," McGrady told The Telegraph.

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