Apparently, apes, gorillas and monkeys peel bananas from the bottom-up, not from the stem-down...as it takes care of the the string cheese problem aaaand the weird GI-tract nub in one fell swoop.
Thank you all for sharin' that! I been doin' it wrong all these years.
*PS: If I may quote from Dave Barry, doesn't "Amazing Banana Secret" sound like a punk-rock band name?