Commercial Bananas: The Worlds Most Destructive Crop

[PaleoPhil]

Organic Cavendish banana plantations don't use fungicides, herbicides, pesticides, etc. and the bananas are reportedly highly susceptible to Panama disease. Once infected, because they don't use fungicides, the plantation reportedly has to be completely abandoned and then they have to move to new pristine forest, which they clear cut to make way for another organic banana plantation. Even fungicides don't stop the disease, so nonorganic bananas are also a destructive crop.

Plus, economies based largely on bananas apparently tend to produce atrocious despotisms called "banana republics." So Cavendish bananas are destructive of human freedom as well as the environment.

So perhaps heavy consumers of Cavendish bananas, such as some Wai dieters perhaps, may wish to consider other fruits?

See also:

Bananas: The Worlds Most Destructive Crop #288
Banana: R.I.P.
By Dan Koeppel
http://classic.the-scientist.com/news/display/54710/

Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
By Dan Koeppel

[Aaaaaa]

Wow...that is horrible!!  But, good to know.  Good thing I'm not a huge fan of bananas...;-)
What types of fruits are typically cultivated in a more eco-friendly manner?  A huge problem I've been having lately is finding ripe fruit that is organic.  There just isn't any around here!  What do you think of eating conventional fruit that is ripe, and maybe peeling the skin off?  Fruits are a large part of my diet now, so i I just worry about pesticide contamination...

[PaleoPhil]

What types of fruits are typically cultivated in a more eco-friendly manner?

I'm no expert, but it seems to be typically the local organic crops.

What do you think of eating conventional fruit that is ripe, and maybe peeling the skin off?

It's probably relatively OK, but I don't know for sure.

One interesting thing I do remember is testing various foods for vitamin C in high school and finding that a fresh conventional whole orange from the supermarket had no measurable vitamin C content. The only food that did that I tested was orange juice fortified with vitamin C (probably synthetic).

[Aaaaaa]

Wow!

[PaleoPhil]

Granted, that was back in the 1970's before there was much in the way of fresh, organic local produce. It was all supermarket food. Getting no vitamin C reading from an orange was still a shocker to me, though. Perhaps the content drops with time during its shipment from Florida or wherever and storage.

[Dorothy]

Getting no vitamin c from oranges. Response: It's very good.

And we have a winner for the spot of newest spammer! 

But really - does anyone here grow their own bananas? I grew them in Florida and I have some trees here that I'm waiting to get a greenhouse for. They die to the ground each winter so can't produce fruit - but all I need is a little greenhouse to have all the fresh eco-friendly zero mile dining bananas I want! A fresh ripened on the stalk banana tastes completely different than what they have in stores. It's a million times more delicious.

[Chris]

I've heard "true banana's" have seeds in them. Also, that most banana's on the market in the US are hybrid's (seedless).

[goodsamaritan]

Philippines is a big banana exporter and i know that we export to you that crap cavendish bananas we locals do not eat nor grow in our own land.

Bananas literally grow everywhere in the philippines... But the varieties in yards and empty lots are not cavendish.

[TylerDurden]

For future reference, in the unlikely event I come across a healthfood-store etc. that stores other types of bananas, which types are the best ones?

[goodsamaritan]

>> I've heard "true banana's" have seeds in them. Also, that most banana's on the market in the US are hybrid's (seedless).

Coming from a Banana Republic, yes, I can confirm that some bananas have seeds in them.  But that is not necessarily how the bananas propagate.

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Filipino point of view of cavendish bananas:  tasteless... fit for pigs to eat... made into banana chips and made into banana ketchup, not sold in wet markets as it is not bought in wet markets... exported to foreigners and served in 5 star hotels because foreigners are familiar with this cavendish banana... japanese have the wrong notion that "perfect" speckle free banana is good... rubbish... locals flock to speckled bananas because the speckled bananas taste better... "perfect" speckle free bananas are WEIRD.

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Bananas are so plentiful here we natives can afford to cook the banana flowering heart that eventually gives rise to the entire banana crop of individual banana fingers.

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I will show below 6 different types of bananas I regularly have access to and feed my family.  The lakatan I usually don't buy as I feel it is the most commercialized... but my father in law loves that variety and buys every weekend.  All 6 varieties taste vastly different from one another and a person may prefer one over the other. But for me it is more about availability.

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Our 3 most common bananas in the markets and supermarkets of Metro Manila are:

Lakatan bananas
most popularly sold in the markets and supermarkets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacatan_banana


and

Saba Bananas
usually cooked and sold in the streets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saba_banana (the picture shown in wiki is unripe)


and

Latundan Bananas
Used to address pottasium deficiency and loose bowel movement / diarrhea... even medical doctors know this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latundan_banana  (the picture shown in wiki is unripe)


Less common bananas are:

Red bananas are common Palawan and Sorsogon provinces
In those areas they use this to make banana cakes.
http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/morado-bananas



Senorita bananas found in colder provinces like Tagaytay
When we drive out of town, I stop to buy some of these because these almost never reach the city because they rot easily in hot climates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se%C3%B1orita_banana


Gloria bananas are usually mountain bananas
Commonly sold at our childrens' school which is near the mountains of Montalban.
I don't see a wiki entry and pics on the net but I have some at home now.
So I took a photo and attached it here.

[Dorothy]

Banana trees propagate the most readily by sending off root sprouts. The one tree flowers and goes to flower and then to fruit and seed - but rarely do any of those sprout but... when that tree dies at least two more trees sprout up from those roots. A banana grove grows exponentially in that way. The flowers of bananas are gigantic - as big as your head sometimes. I've never had one cooked before. Maybe I should try it just for fun even though I'm into raw foods. How are they traditionally cooked GS?

Banana leaves are the best paper plates on the planet too. Cut off a leaf, eat off it and then into the compost pile.

I just love banana trees! I really want a greenhouse just to get some bananas off my trees. One day, one day.

[PaleoPhil]

Philippines is a big banana exporter and i know that we export to you that crap cavendish bananas we locals do not eat nor grow in our own land. .... Filipino point of view of cavendish bananas:  tasteless... fit for pigs to eat..

Curse you bastards!!!! LOL Are you saying that Americans are pigs?

[goodsamaritan]

Recipe and video of cooking banana heart / flowers in coconut milk

http://panlasangpinoy.com/2011/05/17/ginataang-puso-ng-saging/

and another recipe

http://lafang.mikemina.com/2006/05/16/luto-ni-nanay-2ginittaan-nga-sabunganay-ilocano-ginataang-bulaklak-ng-saging-tagalog-banana-blossom-in-coconut-milk/

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I got that comment about cavendish bananas only being fit for pigs from one of our maids.  She grew up in a province where those cavendish bananas grow and the natives there agree that cavendish bananas are bland and indeed only the pigs eat the cavendish and not the humans.

I have a customer who's business is to supply all the insecticides, fungicides and herbicides to cavendish banana plantations, visit: jocanima.com

[Dorothy]

Oh - that does sound tedious. Not really worth it to try a cooked dish. Maybe one day when I go to the Phillipines. I think I'd rather be a little piggie and eat the raw cavendish. snark.

[goodsamaritan]

Oh - that does sound tedious. Not really worth it to try a cooked dish. Maybe one day when I go to the Phillipines. I think I'd rather be a little piggie and eat the raw cavendish. snark.

I volunteer to be your tour guide when you come and visit!

[Dorothy]

Why thank you! If and when I get to the Phillipines I am definitely going to take you up on that.

[dariorpl]

I don't see this as a problem. If the plantation is abandoned then something else can be grown there. If it isn't, that's not the fault of the bananas, but of most of the people living there and the type of political system they have.

It's not the bananas that create the banana republics, anymore than potatoes created communism in the USSR, just as traditional mett (raw pork dish) was not what created anti-judaism in Germany.

I'm not a huge fan of bananas myself, too high in sugar. I prefer ripe plantains.

In any case, I ultimately I don't care about what's "eco-friendly", I care about what's human-friendly. If and when those two coincide, I'm in agreement with environmentalists. "eco-friendly" can mean something like drinking spring water from a plastic bottle that claims to completely degrade in 5 years. Now if it completely degrades in 5 years, think about how much toxicity is leeching from the plastic container into your water while that bottle sits on a shelf for weeks or months after bottling. Likewise using paper and cardboard to bag/box your produce, that has been recycled so many times, the chemical load is off the charts.

[PaleoPhil]

I don't see this as a problem. If the plantation is abandoned then something else can be grown there.

In the video and linked article it's explained that the real issue is that abandoned plantations mean that more forest has to be cut down to create new banana plantations.

I'm not a huge fan of bananas myself, too high in sugar. I prefer ripe plantains.

Ripe plantains are almost as high in sugar as ripe bananas, and overripe plantains contain even more sugar:

"Total sugar content was 23% in fully ripe and overripe bananas but in plantains it increased from 20% when fully ripe to 27% when overripe." http://preview.tinyurl.com/msqkdav

The tastiest bananas for me are air-dried semi-ripe plantains. The flavor is intensified and they have just the right amount of mild sweetness for me. They are also lower in sugar than ripe plantains.