This Viral Children's Puzzle About Fruit is Confusing Adults on Social Media

How much debate can a puzzle - meant for kids and involving three types of fruit - churn up? Evidently, A LOT.

Now that Internet sleuths have figured out the Math for Cheryl's birthday and spotted the panda among the snowmen, another children's puzzle is driving people up the wall.

This one has simple equations and asks you to solve the puzzle based on the values assigned to the different fruit. It could possibly have an easy answer, except the fruit, or their values, make it a little harder.

Here's the brainteaser. Take a look, have your answer ready and only then scroll below.
 
Based on this equation, here's our explanation:

Apple  Apple  Apple = 30 -- We can thus assume each apple's value is 10.

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Apple  Bananas  Bananas = 18 -- Here, we can assume each set of bananas equals to 4. So, 10  4  4 = 18

Bananas - Coconuts = 2 -- So, the value of the coconut is 2, making it 4 - 2 = 2

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Based on this, coconut  apple  bananas = 16 (2  10  4 = 16). So the answer is simply 16.

However, some people on social media believe the answer could be 14 or 15 as well. Here's how.

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Since there are four bananas, each individually could be equal to 1. The same logic can be used for the two halves of the coconuts.

The last equation shows one half of the coconut and three bananas, so the answer could also be 14 or maybe 15.

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The puzzle has been around for a while but seems to be going viral now. The post with the puzzle on Facebook has over 2.3 million comments and over 1.6 lakh shares since January 30.
What do you think is the right answer? Tell us in the comments section below.