Mom brought 56 strawberries and 39 raspberries to the bowl and took them to Ema, who was reading. Ema clarified her reading by snacking, and she did so by taking two random pieces of fruit at a time:

- If she drew two raspberries, she traded them with Mom for one strawberry and returned it to the bowl.
- If she drew two strawberries, she ate one and returned the other to the bowl.
- If she drew one strawberry and one raspberry, she ate the strawberry and returned the raspberry to the bowl. She continued snacking this way for a while until only one piece of fruit was left in the bowl. Decide (and explain) whether it was a strawberry or a raspberry.

(L. Hozová)

Hint. Does Ema eat all the fruit from the bowl, or is she picky?
Ema consistently avoided raspberries while eating: if there was one raspberry in her selection, she put it back into the bowl; if she picked two raspberries, she exchanged them for a strawberry. The number of raspberries in the bowl thus decreased exclusively by two.

Since there was an odd number of raspberries in the bowl at the beginning, it remained odd after each transaction. Therefore, the last piece of fruit $\mathrm{v}$ in the bowl was a raspberry.

Note. Unlike raspberries, the number of strawberries in the bowl changed by one (and could both decrease and increase). The parity of the original number of strawberries has no impact on the solution of the problem.

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