Five years ago there was a banana extinction scare in the news, and it had me fearful for the future of my favorite yellow fruit. The article I read said it would take five or ten years for the crisis to ripen. Now that future is here and surprisingly, so are the bananas. Does that mean the scare was a hoax?
Not according to writer Dan Koeppel, who published a book two years ago called “Banana- The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World.” He claims that the yellow banana we know and love is doomed because the very same seedless variety is sold worldwide and it is gradually being attacked by an incurable disease. The Cavendish banana will someday be gone from our store shelves completely, just as the smaller, more flavorful Gros Michel (“Big Mike”) banana common in the 40’s and 50’s has disappeared. It was also a victim of blight.
Imagine that. Two generations hence what people think of as a “banana” will look and probably taste quite different, and that’s only if a suitable replacement can be developed.
So enjoy a wacky bright yellow banana today. Have your picture taken while holding one. Do it for your great, great, great grandchildren, who may never have the chance to eat one. They will doubt that there ever was such an unlikely and garish bit of produce, unless it is immortalized in art.
In fact, we should commission all sorts of banana works. Glass, wood, steel – anything that can physically outlast the banana itself, which would be just about everything. Make banana cave paintings and sculptures so that, like the Easter Island Heads, they can be both a monument and a mystery for people in the distant future. They’ll say “the sculpture appears to be some sort of tropical fruit, but why was this totem chiseled from rock in a location so far north?”
We’ll have to carve them out of marble, because because hoarding bananas in the fallout shelter doesn’t work!
I hate the idea of losing anything lovely due to shortsightedness and monoculture.
But if you had to nominate a fruit for extinction, which one would it be?
Trail Baboon 
Rise and Shine Baboons:
I find myself like Silent Cal today. Not much to say except enjoy the cool! Glad my favorite fruit, raspberries, are not on the voting list to eliminate.
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I recently saw a documentary shot in Britain to expose all the horrible things being done to dogs by AKC dogshow breeding. A great many breeds have been altered to make dogs place well in dog shows. The AKC type of dog is likely to be much larger, more extreme in appearance, equipped with a extravagant coat and (worst of all) incapable of performing the function it was originally bred to do. Some breeds can barely walk. Rather than breeding dogs that are smart, these dogshow breeders produce dogs with massive skulls on the theory that the dogs will have lots of room for brains. Form triumphs over function.
That comes to mind when I look at the fruit area of my grocery store. The fruits are just gorgeous. They look like they’d be great to eat. Alas, in the drive to make fruit LOOK perfect the folks developing new strains of fruit have left out considerations of taste. There are things that look like strawberries but have almost no flavor. Apples bred to resist bruising taste like apples designed to not bruise. The factory system has captured the food world, and I shudder at the ubiquitous name Dole just as I shudder at the name Comcast in other areas of life.
What fruit would I like to see go extinct? That’s easy: any and all fruits that have been developed in laboratories to by Dr. Kyle and his cohorts, fruits that are large and blemish-free and not fit to eat. Lucky me to have lived into an age of mutant dogs and mutant faux food.
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In the last couple days, I’ve picked and eaten the first of my organic, heirloom tomatoes. They’re homely and funny-shaped with variegated colors — but oh man, the taste and texture is out-of-this-world wonderful! Can’t garden, you say? Neither can I — get yourself an Earth Box!
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Me too! Homegrown organic basil pesto with homegrown organic Brandywine tomatoes! Summer’s heaven!
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Good Morning to All,
It is hard for me to think of any kind of fruit that I would nominate for extinction. I guess I would choose quince. We had a quince bush in our yard when I was young, but I don’t think we made use of them. They have to to be cooked and you can’t eat them raw which isn’t my idea of what a fruit should be. I’m sure they would be missed by the fans of quince jam and other food made with them.
I would assume that plant breeders have been working on finding another variety of banana that will work when the one now in use is lost. One year when I was checking potato fields for farmers I was wondering if they would be able to keep growing them because there were a lot of disease and insect pest problems building up in the fields that were very hard to control. That was a bad year and more recently the problems have not been as great, but modern farming practices can create problems that are hard to solve. Some of the problems faced by potato growers are due to heavy use of pesticides which is usually a part of normal madern potato growing practices.
Did you know that most of the world’s food supply comes from small peasent farmers and food gathers? May be there are peasant farmers who are growing some other kinds of bananas that don’t have as many disease problems.
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Greetings! I would hate to see any fruit go extinct, as I love them all. Although I do agree with Steve — the drive for perfect-looking fruit, dogs, people, lawns, etc., has bred all manner of contemptuous practices and attitudes that is extremely shallow and doesn’t allow for diversity.
In a hundred years or so when they look back on our culture, they will undoubtedly shake their heads in wonder at our ridiculous attitudes and vulgar attempts to control everything. In a world gone truly mad, Heidi somebody comes to mind. Is she the model/actress(??) who started out blonde and gorgeous, underwent an extreme surgery makeover to be even more blonde and gorgeous? From what I read in the break room magazines, her face is still swollen and she’s in constant pain from the surgeries. A very sad statement on Hollywood in particular, and our world in general.
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Heidi Montag. Her face is a mask now that has been worked on so much she cannot smile.
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Too creepy, I just saw one of those news blurbs that her plastic surgeon was killed in a car crash while Twittering about his border collie.
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Good Morning, all! It is cool and overcast this morning in Zim, but the tuberous begonias are blooming beautifully and their bright color makes a wonderful, cheerful display in the front yard.
I am with those who can’t think of any fruit that should be made to go away. I found a website that feaures “Rare Fruit Growers”, and was checking their list of fruits by common name, family and genus, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but Billy Goat Plum! (Terminalia Ferdinandia – Combretaceae) Could some of the Babooners who have Photo Shop and great artistic skill giving us a version of the Billy Goat Plum that could be entered in a Trail Baboon virtual State Fair competiton?
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I am going to–having stolen it from the new, revised, and expand “Big Lake Lexicon of Modern American Usage” because it such a rich word and of so many applications on this blog—use the word “Unbaboonish” without apology to Joanne: It would be unbaboonish to reject any fruit, much less wish it into extinction. But if blueberries or raspberries were on that list, I would be tempted.
I am also willing to, like Thurber in his satire of his friend E.B. White’s “Modern American Usage,” and he did it with a four page digression in which he concluded it could on occasion be acceptable to throw one’s salad plate at a formal dinner—split an infinitive.
Steve—a quote for you from Pedro Almodovar: “Anything that is not autobiography is plagiarism.”
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Cool, Clyde. I’m a fan of his. Now, what do we do with the autobiographies that are plagiarized? There’s a lot of that going around these days.
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Clyde – so happy you like the new word, but I had my doubts at first. I would like to thank the Academy of Modern American Usage for recognizing the merit of my peculiar word for the new and expanded version. Henceforth, each time the word “unbaboonish” is used in print, blog or otherwise, it will be duly credited to me, along with ample financial remuneration. Thank you …. Thank you ….
(teehee — I couldn’t resist — all in good fun for the glory of actually giving a thank you speech at an awards ceremony)
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Time to badly make banana bread and freeze it. Cryogenics is the future!
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I meant to madly bake not badly make-an unintentional spoonerism
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Actually, I know how to make the former…
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Give up a fruit? Well, no, I don’t think I could do that. Besides, some of them just have fun names, like the kumquat. What’s not to love with such a fun name? Or banana? It’s just fun to say bananananananana.
Though I will agree with the comments thus far that our desire to breed things that *look* good has had disastrous results. The long stemmed rose it what comes to mind for me. The average red rose currently available has almost virtually no smell, and what scent there is certainly doesn’t smell like rose. There is a lavender colored rose that was bred in part for color, but mostly for scent. It’s small and the stem is not always straight, but it sure does smell good. Clearly a breeder raging against the machine in his own way…
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Morning…
Well, I’m encouraged by the results of the poll. Right, nothing *should* go extinct, but perhaps the more obscure fruits and vegies… like ground cherries or something. ;-).
I heard about the banana scare too; I think someone did a lecture on that here at the college last year… it was interesting to hear about the old banana.
In regard to general farming practices, and GMO products (GeneticallyMOdified) like ‘Round up ready’ beans and corn, or ‘root worm resistant’ corn, ‘leaf hopper resistant’ alfalfa, etc… it is a slippery slope.
Demand for food production drives some of this; aided by the chemical companies of course, and supply and demand… prices vary depending on the weather in Russia and Brazil more than predicted crop production in the US. But let me just point out again, farmers do care about their land.
“Today’s American farmer feeds about 155 people worldwide. In 1960, that number was 25.8. ” (from http://www.farmersfeedus.org/fun-farm-facts/) Also from that site did you know:
-The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds
-Raising beef cattle is the single largest segment of American agriculture.
-One pound of wool can make 10 miles of yarn. There are 150 yards (450 feet) of wool yarn in a baseball.
-Soybeans are an important ingredient for the production of crayons. In fact, one acre of soybeans can produce 82,368 crayons.
Potentially hot topic here… I’ve been typing and erasing for half an hour now so I better stop.
Have a great day everyone!
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Ben – don’t get me started on GM foods. It is a slippery slope indeed. I’m sure it all started with good intentions, feed the world and the miracle of science, but there are aspects of GM foods and companies that are troubling to me at least, and I won’t go into them here. As a farmer, you probably know more than I do on this topic.
Interesting note: I think I read in an article on Natural News that Monsanto had donated tons of seeds to farmers in Haiti. The farmers refused the seeds, knowing that they would be in bondage forever to Monsanto, having to buy their seeds every year along with the requisite chemicals to grow the plants. They didn’t want to abandon the centuries-long practice of saving seeds from their best plants for the next year’s crop.
Very interesting statistics. Thanks for sharing your insight on this topic, Ben.
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Farmers whose seed is contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified varieties and who are therefore at risk of being sued by Monsanto should file a class action suit against the corporate giant. It’s a farmer’s right to save seed, and it makes sense to encourage genetic diversity. Don’t even get me started.
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I just got done reading Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.” I recommend it. She’s an excellent writer and gives us a glimpse into her own life and family with this book. She’s done her research and, as an evolutionary biologist, she knows her topic thoroughly. Companies like Monsanto have been allowed to become too powerful – suing small farmers is one example of that power.
I love bananas too. They’re wonderfully flavorful and nutritious fruit that are packaged in their own biodegradable zipper pack! Unfortunately for us, they have to be shipped from very far away. I knew this before reading Barbara Kingsolver’s book but now I can’t look at bananas without wondering where they came from and feeling a little guilty for still wanting them on my cereal. I don’t want them to go away though. Like Steve, I’d prefer the Dr. Kyle products go away. I voted “Other.” I’ve been working on becoming a “locavore” for a couple of years now.
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Krista – I love B. Kingsolver too, and Animal Vegetable Miracle is inspiring to say the least, not to mention the recipes. I think it has come up here before…
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I’m being anal and technical here, but GMO refers to Genetically Modified Organisms. From Wikipedia: “Genetically modified (GM) foods are foods derived from genetically modified organisms. Genetically modified organisms have had specific changes introduced into their DNA by genetic engineering techniques.”
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Joanne, you are correct. I did a Google search for ‘GMO Corn’ so it left off the “organism” part… and then I made an ‘ASSumption’… my bad. Thanks for correcting that.
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I am thinking of fields of soybeans modified to be pre-colored for crayons. Not good for environment, I’m sure but think of a field filled with 64 colors: cerulean, carnation pink, crimson…festive, if not especially “green.”
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We are told about the ability of the modern farmers to feed many people but a study found that only about one third of the people in the world live on food produced by modern farmers, peasants supply the rest of the food. I live where there are many very large corn and soy bean fields that are part of that system where one farmer can feed many people. It does take some skill to grow corn and soy beans the way they do here, but I don’t think it is really a good way to farm. I think farms that are more like peasant farms would be better and we really don’t need those big farms as much as some people think because the small farms are already feeding most of the world.
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Jim, that’s very interesting. The seed corn companies never tell us that at their free luncheon meetings.
I’m going to do some research on this.
Thanks for giving me something to think about.
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Ben, the source of my information is the ETC Foundation which has a web page on the internet.
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Ben, I was wrong. I got my information from the ETC Group, not the ETC Foundation. The ETC publication that has this information is “Who Will Feed Us”.
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Two words that terrify me: Terminator Seeds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_Technology
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Amen to that. One of many reasons why, IMHO, Monsanto is one of the more evil corporations today.
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They are so stealthy that so many of the educated and well-read have never heard of the corporation or its products! Doubly evil.
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“It is only with age that you acquire the gift to evaluate decay.” Paul Theroux
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My nominee would be the pummelo. Never have I worked so hard for so little as when I tried peeling and eating a pummelo.
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That is a lovely rendition of the fruit name! Certainly after I spent a full hour peeling a “pomelo” this summer, I very much wanted to “pummel” it.
I do my best to only eat pomelo and pomegranates after someone has done the hard work. ‘Cos I have leech-like tendencies. Doesn’t always work out though. P.S. At least after peeling a pomelo, you can eat all the lovely sac-things (blanking on the term). A pomegranate on the other hand is full of seeds still…
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Had to do my 12 mile morning run to work today without a banana to eat en route. Unthinkable. But there were none in the house.
I could live without the scuppernong, starfruit, and even mango… but not without the banana, fruit loved by marathoners everywhere.
Yes! We have no bananas!
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Elinor has already said what needs to be said about seed-saving and Monsanto contamination, I shall only add-Hear! Hear!
I voted the banana out because I am a well-trained Baboon, and when Dale says to vote, I do. Species extinction is not something I can in any way support, but the political and economic damage done by commercial banana growing is staggering.
I’ve read enough to make me stop buying them. Here is what Wikipedia has to say-tip of the banana split, as it were.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
I’m not purist enough to turn down a few handed over the fence for the purposes of bread making/ smoothy augmentation, but buy them I will not.
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Wow – thanks for fascinating article. I did not realize the extent of banana damage. I don’t imagine organic bananas are any less damaging … I’ll have to consider this one carefully.
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My coworker’s mother is from Costa Rica. He said that “conventional” bananas are not treated with many pesticides there at all and that the organic designation for bananas is kind of meaningless. It just makes them more expensive. I don’t know if that is a fact or just something he observed from his time spent there.
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It’s really odd that Banana Republic was picked up to be used as a retail name.
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At the height of the War in Viet Nam, some company produced a woman’s perfume named “Charlie” no less, which was quite successful for awhile.
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I can vaguely hear the jingle for that perfume in my brain.
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Wasn’t there something about “…kinda young, kinda now – Charlie – kinda hip, kinda wow – Charlie…”? I can even see the woman walking down the street with her hat (sort of Annie Hall looking).
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That’s it, Anna! Not nearly as cool as Annie Hall, though. 😉
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Once read an article that the only way to eat ripe (messy) mango is in the bathtub… nope, can’t give up mangos… Kumquats are awfully tart, but kind of fun and you can eat the whole thing, rind and all. I vote for the scuppernog or that pumello thing, but I suppose I should at least search and see what they are.
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But, but, … what about Dr Larry Kyle? (cue the thunder and lightning) And Genway foods? (hysterical laughter echoing in an windowless science laboratory). He can save the banana, surely! In some form, anyway. Maybe he can devise a Cheshire Banana which could fade away at any time, but while it is present, it will smile and talk to you.
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I think it would help me a lot of Dr. Kyle could develop a cold tolerant variety so they would fit in with my locovoire aspirations.
Maybe one that grows in winter, pre-frozen for chocolate dipping? Or maybe with the chocolate coating instead of a peel?
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Ooh madislandgirl! – a new variety of banana by Dr Larrry Kyle:
Chiquita Chocolata Frozenianabanana!
DR Kyle:” So icey and full of chocolate that it is slippery without the peel! (Thunder rolls in the background)You’ll need to wear mittens to eat them – don’t forget about the dangers of frost bite! Dale – these bananas are so cold, you don’t even have to store them in the freezer – ha ha ha! They have been known to keep small houses cool in the summer time!”(Thunder crashes)
Dale: “But Dr Kyle, if they are that cold shouldn’t we worry about, you know, our tongues getting stuck to them?”
DR Kyle: “NO, Dale! Minnesotans do not have to worry about this because their tongues have been genetically modified to deal with that situation. We will only release the Chiquita Chocolata Frozenianabanana in this state. More monkeying around – I MEAN – research must be done before we can allow this product to cross state lines. You can find them at any Genway store – they are kept in the airconditioner. Just lift the front panel and take one out. ”
Dale: “Thank you, Dr Kyle.”
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Wow, Thyrkas, thanks for the Dr. Kyle! 🙂 Almost like hearing him!
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I think Thyrkas must have been a ghost writer on the Morning Show… too funny! 🙂
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No, I definitlely am not now, nor have I ever been, a ghost writer for the Morning Show. Dale didn’t need anybody’s help to produce his marvelous collection of characters and their antics. What this does show, though, is how alive those characters still are in our minds. We can imagine what they would do, how they would sound, what they would say, just as we might with any close friend or family member.
Hope Dale and Jim Ed know how deeply we enjoyed their fine writing and acting, and how keenly we miss them.
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I ride through campus each day, looking on in dismay,
watching students come to town and how heavily they are loaded down.
Retreat we can’t from the things that make us rant.
Our brightest and best have it all plus the rest.
They aim for perfect life and not living through the strife
of having only what they need, not all their appetites to feed.
They have a refrigerator and will not wait to have things later.
Powerful items electronic to hear and watch media moronic.
They want it all quick and easy, and yes it makes me queasy.
It makes me angry, you can see,
but it’s because I did not have that in 1963.
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Ah, Clyde – the school year resumes. It’s always the same and always different, yes? Thanks for the poem.
Your poem makes me think of something I overheard the other day. A young woman was speaking to her friends, saying, “I sent her a text and called her cell but she hasn’t gotten back to me, so I guess I’ll have to do things the old fashioned way and email her.” There you have it – what is new and handsome to us is old hat to our grandchildren. But on a more post-modern note, we Babooners drop comments on a blog that can be read anywhere on earth – and that is definitely not circa 1963.
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“It was the age of aerograms and postcards and big black unreliable telephones.” Paul Theroux
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I used to love the ritual of writing letters as a child; till now I have a small collection of stationery with pretty matching envelopes etc. Hardly have occasion to use the stuff though.
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Me too, MN in Sudbury (were you also MN in Texas?)… I still try and write snail mail now and then.
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Hi Barbara,
Yes I was formerly MN-TX 🙂
Just recalled that the most recent use of my matchy-matchy stationery was to send Grandma-In-Law a birthday gift. I’ll have to start sending more grandmas more gifts I guess!
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We had none of those things in 1983 either.
I cast rather a jaudiced eye on students who complained to me about the cost of their books and their lack of time to do assignments, when a walk through campus in the evening yielded the blue glow of a tv screen in every dorm room. The “I couldn’t get on a computer “line for a long-term assignment also got no sympathy.
On the other hand, I had a student who requested that her group present their project EARLY, as the day they were assigned to present was the day her family was auctioning off the dairy herd, and she wanted to be with her family for that. I had a couple of other students like that. Not many, but they are out there.
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Books nowadays are very expensive, even when bought used. I remember paying over $700 just for books one semester. It was not fun trying to get that kind of money at the beginning of a semester, before the loan money came through. There were a couple times I had to go without books for a couple of weeks until I could scrounge up the money to pay for them. And of course, I’ll be paying off my student loans for years to come.
I never had trouble with not having enough time to do a homework assignment, but then I wasn’t working full-time either. I knew a lot of kids in school who were working and going to school full-time. Somehow, they managed to get all of their work done and still do well in class. I was only allowed to work 10 hours a week (work-study), so I had plenty of time to do homework…though, being a procrastinator I did have quite a few all-nighters to finish projects 🙂
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I’ll bet you also did not try and tell the prof not to schedule anything important for the Wednesday 11am class, because Tuesday was bar night.
I am not kidding.
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Nope, though sometimes we would ask to not have class on Friday after 12, haha. Nobody wanted to be stuck in class before the weekend, especially if the weather was nice. Going to Michigan Tech, we didn’t have a lot of “nice weather” days. Most of the time, we were fighting to stay upright on the snow-covered, icy sidewalks in the blowing wind. Lots of fun…though the weather there provided the perfect excuse to stay inside and study… 🙂
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Well, this makes me homesick:
http://www.lsmma.com/webcam/webcam_lg.html
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How great is that! Thanks, Clyde.
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Finally got home and loaded the picture. That makes me Duluth-sick… 😦
There was a newish Scandinavian café downtown called Takk for Maten on Superior St when we drove through in June. Yum.
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If I had to vote, it would be to eliminate the papaya. The seeds freak me out, they look kinda like rabbit poo — which has no business being inside of a fruit.
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like
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…rabbit poo, I said!
😉
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this from the lover of durian
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May I remind you that there are many lovers of stinky foods…
Lovers of food-resembling-poo*, on the other hand, are few and far between.
I rest my case.
[*as opposed to “Lovers-of-food resembling poo”]
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touche
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Speaking of the life chemical, and then I will quit speaking, my wife went to the doctor yesterday and got another prescription, this one to make one of her other prescriptions work, a terrible situation to be in but the alternative is misery and death.
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I love bananas! I really don’t want them to become extinct or disappear. I love eating them on toasted English muffins with peanut butter. Yum! That’s my idea of a perfect breakfast, haha. I couldn’t decide on a fruit to get rid of, so I picked peaches. I like peaches, but I don’t go out of my way to buy them at the grocery store. I do enjoy the ones my grandparents bring up with them from Arkansas. So tasty and juicy…mmm…
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Alanna,
Pretty much the only time I eat peanut butter is on toast of some sort, with sliced bananas. A Minnesotan once told me that his favourite sandwich was with sliced pickles instead of the banana. Ewwwww.
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And where is dear Renee? I think she was traveling to Canada over weekend for daughter’s violin camp of some sort. Plus, she had tickets to see Christopher Plummer in “The Tempest” as I recall. I am waiting for her full report on her theatrical evening.
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Yes, I think she was going to be gone for an entire week or more…
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I think I have probably eaten, on average, three bananas a week for the past forty years or so. I would not want to give up bananas under any circumstance, even if it’s morally bankrupt to keep buying them.
Kiwi, on the other hand, I probably wouldn’t miss.
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Linda, that is so scary – I eat 3+ bananas per week and was thinking the kiwi could disappear without my missing it either. And I live in St. Paul – ’nuff said (insert creepy music here).
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I will be true to the banana until death. Until death, I say! And the lemon. Because without the lemon there would be no Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy, which is now almost impossible to find because its season has ended. Ended, I say! This was told to me just this afternoon at the neighborhood supermart, making it a bitter pill to swallow because I was so desiring one after work. So instead I bought Blue Moon’s Honey Moon and squeezed lemon into it and if I said it was just as delicious as Shandy it would be a lie, but if I said I poured it down the sink the truth would not be in me either. All the same it’s a happy ending as my thirst was quenched with the Honey Moon in me, and the next time I’m at the supermart I will take the sympathetic checker’s advice and try New Belgium’s Skinny Dip.
Dale – is there any chance this soliloquy might make it into Rhyme Wave?
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