10 Shocking Banana Facts and the Grim Future of Your Favorite Fruit
100 Billion Bananas Eaten per Year and Counting: Learn Why Your Favorite Fruit Is Under Threat!
August 1st, 2024
My kids love them, I love them, Skippy the Magnificent uses them to insult the monkeys (aka humans), I’m sure you love & eat them and you can buy them in every supermarket. We make cakes, ice cream, chips, and even use the leaves as hats, plates, or natural aluminum foil. Yep, it’s the banana.
Why write about bananas? I shared an image (see title image) on Substack Notes, cracked a joke about bananas and that led to an exchange with
, and I thought, “Hey, this is actually an interesting topic.” So, let’s dive into the world of bananas.Today, we eat 100 billion bananas per year. Get it? 100 billion! Let’s write this out for emphasis: 100,000,000,000 BANANAS PER YEAR. That’s a lot of potassium, folks.
Here are ten interesting facts you didn’t know about bananas, perfect for your next trivia night:
1. Bananas Are Berries
Botanically speaking, bananas are classified as berries. They develop from a single ovary and have seeds embedded in the flesh, unlike strawberries and raspberries, which are not true berries. Mind blown, right?
2. They Don’t Grow on Trees
Despite their tree-like appearance, banana plants are actually large herbs. Their “trunks” are made of tightly packed leaf bases rather than wood.
3. They Come in Many Colors
While most people are familiar with yellow bananas, they can also be red, purple, green, and even brown when ripe. The inside, however, remains light yellow. A rainbow of bananas!
4. Banana Plants Are Cloned
Bananas are sterile and cannot reproduce through seeds. Instead, they are propagated by planting a piece of the plant, making the bananas we eat today genetically identical to those from previous generations.
5. Bananas Are Radioactive
Bananas contain potassium-40, a radioactive isotope. But don’t worry, you’d need to eat about 700 bananas a day for 80 years to get a harmful dose of radiation.
6. Historical Cultivation
Bananas have been cultivated for thousands of years. Evidence suggests they were first grown in Papua New Guinea as far back as 5000-8000 BC.
7. Cultural Significance
In Hinduism, the banana plant symbolizes the goddesses Parvati and Lakshmi and represents eternal knowledge. In some cultures, banana fibers are used to make fabric and paper.
8. Banana Republics
The term “banana republic” originated to describe Central American countries that were economically dependent on banana exports and often controlled by foreign corporations.
9. Banana Beer and Wine
In some parts of the world, bananas are used to make alcoholic beverages like banana beer and wine, showcasing their versatility beyond just being a fruit.
10. The Yellow Color
The yellow bananas we commonly see are a result of selective breeding. The original wild bananas were not yellow and had large seeds. The familiar yellow variety, known as Cavendish, became popular after the Gros Michel variety was decimated by disease in the 20th century.
Let’s dive deeper into number 10. Gros Michel was actually the better banana. Cavendish couldn’t compete. The Panama disease, a fungus, eradicated the Gros Michel banana plant. You can still taste the Gros Michel in the artificial banana flavor we use for cooking.
Gros Michel was creamier, larger, and more robust. Our current banana, the Cavendish, needs a tremendous amount of cooling to land nicely on our supermarket shelves.
The fungus wiped out Gros Michel due to monoculture and the fact that Gros Michel was also a clone. Once the fungus infected one plant, it spread like wildfire, killing all plants.
But wait, you said the Cavendish is also a clone (see fun fact number 4). Could what happened to Gros Michel also happen to our beloved Cavendish? Unfortunately, yes. And it’s already happening. The same fungus that killed Gros Michel is now threatening our Cavendish, albeit a different strain. The fungus is active in over 20 countries and leads to 100% yield loss, contaminates water and soil, and can survive up to 20 years in the soil. So, it’s impossible to eradicate.
Bummer alert: Scientists believe that in 10 years, the Cavendish banana could be gone. They are working on countermeasures, and we’ll see if they succeed.
Enjoy your bananas, monkeys!
So long, yum yum,
Walter
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Current Books in Parallel Reading:
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Pyramid of Success by Coach Wooden
Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Habits I’m Working On:
• Fitness & Health: More sports, healthy eating, no junk food, lots of veggies, and less sugar. Aim: Sports 4 times a week (weights and running).
Mindset: I’m a runner and I’m healthy.
Status: not today did some gymnastic this morning
• Dental Health: Flossing daily to avoid crowns and root canals.
Mindset: I have healthy teeth and I don’t hear the drill sound anymore
Status: no joy the 3rd
• Writing: Practice, practice, practice—daily diary entries, no excuses.
Mindset: Today Bananas you Monkeys
• Weight: 112 kg (still still no scale)
Mindset: Will go on the scale tomorrow
Consecutive Days Posting on Walter’s Diary:
Twenty-Three (23)