Why bananas as we know them might go extinct (and what to do about it)

[BigVMan23]

Why bananas as we know them might go extinct - CNN.com

 

Talked to a fruit supplier at Speedway about a year ago about this very thing. He said then it was already happening and to expect the price of bananas to go up, then skyrocket, then pretty much not have bananas anymore for a while.

 

 

Fifty years ago, we were eating better bananas.

 

They tasted better, they lasted longer, they were more resilient and didn't require artificial ripening. They were -- simply put -- a better fruit, because they belonged to a different species, or cultivar in banana parlance.

 

It was called Gros Michel and it remained the world's export banana until 1965.

 

That year, it was declared commercially extinct due to the Panama disease, a fungal disease that started out from Central America and quickly spread to most of the world's commercial banana plantations, leaving no other choice but to burn them down.

 

The banana industry was in deep crisis, and had to look for alternatives. It settled with the Cavendish cultivar, which was deemed an inferior product but carried the distinction of being immune to the disease. It was quickly adopted by banana growers worldwide.

 

Today, the Cavendish is a universal foodstuff, much like a Big Mac: supermarket bananas are pretty much identical anywhere you buy them.

 

That's because they have nearly no genetic diversity -- the plants are all clones of one another. The Cavendish is a monoculture, which means it's the only variety that most commercial growers plant every year. Which is also why it is now under threat itself, from a new strain of the Panama disease. And once it infects one plant, it can infect them all.

[Jumper_Dad]

More bananas are sold at grocery stores than any other single thing.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

More bananas are sold at grocery stores than any other single thing.

 

...they're not selling them to me. I could probably count on one or two fingers the number of bananas I eat in a year.

[Jumper_Dad]

...they're not selling them to me. I could probably count on one or two fingers the number of bananas I eat in a year.

I could eat them every day, I love them.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

I could eat them every day, I love them.

 

I don't particularly like or dislike them...which is why I'm pretty much indifferent as to whether or not we ever have them to eat. I much prefer apples and oranges to bananas (although I know there's no beating bananas for nutritional value).

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

...the article does make me really interested to try a Gros Michel banana. The article stated that they are declared "commercially extinct", which means they are out there, just not in a commercially grown fashion. There was a link to a video of the author of the book "Banana: The fate of the fruit that changed the world" eating one for the first time. I'd definitely be interested to try one if I was ever afforded the opportunity.

 

[Lawnboy13]

They don't last more than two days in the Lawnboy house.

[NKY Bandit]

Thought the darn Minions had something to do with this. Those guys eat nothing but bananas and there are zillions of them.

[Jim Schue]

Love bananas, but I quit buying them as much when they went from .39 to .59 a pound.

[CincySportsFan]

Love bananas, but I quit buying them as much when they went from .39 to .59 a pound.

 

Back about three decades or so ago when I was in high school, working at a grocery store, there used to be a guy who'd come in every week or so who got bananas. He was an older guy, who may have been a few sandwiches shy of a full picnic basket even in his younger days. The normal "route" in the store would take you by/thru the produce section first, so he'd get a bunch of bananas at the beginning and then do the rest of his shopping. But, by the time he got to the checkout, he'd have already eaten one or two of them! He'd go ahead and put the peel(s) on the scale, along with the rest of the uneaten bananas...thinking that he was paying for them. Always got a chuckle out of that.

[MentschTrachtGottLacht]

....

 

I eat a banana every night before bed.

[BigVMan23]

...the article does make me really interested to try a Gros Michel banana. The article stated that they are declared "commercially extinct", which means they are out there, just not in a commercially grown fashion. There was a link to a video of the author of the book "Banana: The fate of the fruit that changed the world" eating one for the first time. I'd definitely be interested to try one if I was ever afforded the opportunity.

 

 

Same here. Sounds pretty yummy the way he described it. Back in the day the Cavendish, the type we eat now, was considered a "junk banana".

Edited July 29, 2015 by Colonels_Wear_Blue
Fixed The Quote

[Clyde]

....

 

I eat a banana every night before bed.

 

I have one every morning loaded with crunch peanut butter. Just had one.

[rjs4470]

Banana's are the only fruit I cannot eat. I hate everything about them...taste, texture, smell. I have no idea why. Since I love fruit, and eat fruit daily, I have no clue as to why I find banana's so vile. Every few years, I try one, thinking my taste will have evolved or changed. Same result. One bite, and I toss it. I wouldn't miss them one bit if they disappeared.

[Jim Schue]

Banana's are the only fruit I cannot eat. I hate everything about them...taste, texture, smell. I have no idea why. Since I love fruit, and eat fruit daily, I have no clue as to why I find banana's so vile. Every few years, I try one, thinking my taste will have evolved or changed. Same result. One bite, and I toss it. I wouldn't miss them one bit if they disappeared.

 

They taste a lot better once you peel them.