I Am Very Sad That I Never Lived To See Old Bananas

[act]

Bananas - or, the bananas that have been cultivated for wide-spread consumption - are a serious monoculture. The old type of bananas - Gros Michel - were more banana-flavoured. But they died out from fungus, and now we grow and eat cavendish bananas.

I am sorely disappointed to not live in a time where bananas tasted like banana candy.

[Grazza]

The bananas have become so recognisable that their fruit seems very much unrecognisable.  You can tell why this is.  It's because the bananas are more than just edible fruit. There's a huge difference between edible bananas and fruit that taste like a big chunk of fruit on a banana, or in other words, a banana. It can also be a sign of 'banana culture', or at the very least, a sign of a banana's superiority over other food. Or it can be a sign of 'a culture that's still very much in place.' To give an example, let's say you want to know when one pound of banana is the same as the next.  It's one pound for a two-pound package of bananas, one for each of 3 categories.  If you want bananas that still taste like bananas in its colour, you can try a pair of two-pound cups of coconut milk while you're still on school. However, if it's a 'real banana', it's not much.

 

So much better to use a traditional fruit juice if you can make it taste like banana. And if you can taste it, then you can make an authentic banana because it's more delicious and so much more sustainable. It would be great to keep an eye on bananas and what is important in the present day banana culture around the world. In that light, I would like to inform you that the banana in question is Pernutia molifloriana (Pernutia is one of the African peppers, a type of pepper that is sometimes called "Nuco", by which it means "Outsiders, Raccoons, Wolves, and Dogs"). Pernutia is an important ingredient in banana skins which contain an important and potent vitamin K-2 that is needed for both protection and growth. Since it is native in South Africa the world's banana crop currently needs approximately 4,000,000,000 bananas (about 0.05 percent of total banana crop crops worldwide).

 

 

[Coopersville]

Inject candy banana flavour shots into your Cavendish fruit perhaps?

[ASD]

But can we handle the banana factory accident?

 

[Gez]

8 hours ago, act said:

Bananas - or, the bananas that have been cultivated for wide-spread consumption - are a serious monoculture. The old type of bananas - Gros Michel - were more banana-flavoured. But they died out from fungus, and now we grow and eat cavendish bananas. 

Bananas are a monoculture because the cultivated banana is sterile.

 

Long story short, the domesticated banana is a triploid species, meaning its chromosomes are in triplets instead of being in pairs like with us. This was accomplished by hybridizing diploid bananas with tetraploid bananas. 2/2 + 4/2 = 3. But 3 is not an even number, so these triploid bananas cannot attempt sexual reproduction, and so they produce no seeds. This is desired, because a wild banana is absolutely full of seeds.

 

That said, if you do want to eat a Gros Michel banana, it's still possible. The cultivar isn't fully extinct, it's just disappeared from most regions and therefore is no longer produced on a large scale, but there are still a few areas where the fungus never reached them. It'll probably be expensive, though.

 

And note that the Cavendish's days are numbered. For pretty much the same reason as the Gros Michel: the Panama disease. The fungus that killed large-scale culture of Gros Michel has had a lot of time to adapt to the new banana tree on the block, and so while the Cavendish cultivar was originally adopted because it was resistant to the fusarium wilt that was killing off Gros Michel trees, this resistance is now lost.

[Sergeant G]

9 hours ago, act said:

Bananas - or, the bananas that have been cultivated for wide-spread consumption - are a serious monoculture. The old type of bananas - Gros Michel - were more banana-flavoured. But they died out from fungus, and now we grow and eat cavendish bananas.

I am sorely disappointed to not live in a time where bananas tasted like banana candy.

Watched a YouTube documentary, I think it was VICE, about this issue. Really a bummer, but it's one of those things I have to say I'm glad I know about. 

[leejacksonaudio]

If you're willing to pay good money for them, you can still get Gros Michel bananas today from Miami Fruit:

 

https://miamifruit.org/collections/banana-pre-orders/products/gros-michel-banana-box-pre-order

[Jello]

5 hours ago, leejacksonaudio said:

If you're willing to pay good money for them, you can still get Gros Michel bananas today from Miami Fruit:

 

https://miamifruit.org/collections/banana-pre-orders/products/gros-michel-banana-box-pre-order

Wow, $67 for 3-5 pounds of fruit, over $13 a pound at best, when Walmart sells them for fifty eight cents a pound. That takes balls. I'm sure it costs more for a small producer to grow them, but that seems like an extreme price hike.

 

I can't say that I'm particularly concerned about bananas in general though, I seem to have an allergy to them, and they're the only fruit that causes issues. My lips and gums swell up when I eat them, and it's not terribly bad, but just enough that I tend to stay away from them. There are plenty of other delicious fruits in the world to eat, and bananas don't really taste that good in the first place. I'd rather have an apple, pear, orange, or peach personally. Maybe the original ones did taste better, but the ones I've grown up with just taste mealy and plain.

 

Or maybe plaintain! Oh ho.

[leejacksonaudio]

8 hours ago, Jello said:

Wow, $67 for 3-5 pounds of fruit, over $13 a pound at best, when Walmart sells them for fifty eight cents a pound. That takes balls. I'm sure it costs more for a small producer to grow them, but that seems like an extreme price hike.

Keep in mind that Walmart sells the widely available Cavendish cultivar. Miami Fruit is offering the damn near unobtainable Gros Michel variety, assumed by many to be extinct (it's not - it's just nearly impossible to grow on any kind of scale). Miami Fruit is probably not making an unreasonable profit off of the Gros Michel bananas.

[leejacksonaudio]

8 hours ago, Jello said:

My lips and gums swell up when I eat them

Those are absolutely signs of an allergy. I went through food allergy testing long years ago with an allergy doctor, and those were signs I was told to look out for. Avoid bananas and banana-related products. Your body will thank you.

[act]

14 hours ago, leejacksonaudio said:

Keep in mind that Walmart sells the widely available Cavendish cultivar. Miami Fruit is offering the damn near unobtainable Gros Michel variety, assumed by many to be extinct (it's not - it's just nearly impossible to grow on any kind of scale). Miami Fruit is probably not making an unreasonable profit off of the Gros Michel bananas.

I know and that's why I'm so sad and angry about it.

[P41R47]

On 11/4/2021 at 10:15 AM, Gez said:

This is desired, because a wild banana is absolutely full of seeds.

If those are the Gros Michael type, the name fits perfectly...

...because thats gross :(

[Gez]

Nope, the Gros Michel bananas are, just like the Cavendish bananas, a seedless triploid cultivar.

[leejacksonaudio]

I wonder what this banana tastes like. (Hua Moa banana)

 

[Dark Pulse]

1 hour ago, P41R47 said:

If those are the Gros Michael type, the name fits perfectly...

...because thats gross :(

Fun fact: Us breeding the seeds out of them is what is leading to the current ability of fungi to wipe out their lineages. Essentially we're breeding clones of bananas, which reduces their genetic diversity, which results in a pathogen that can attack one of them essentially being able to attack the whole cultivar.

[P41R47]

1 minute ago, Dark Pulse said:

Fun fact: Us breeding the seeds out of them is what is leading to the current ability of fungi to wipe out their lineages. Essentially we're breeding clones of bananas, which reduces their genetic diversity, which results in a pathogen that can attack one of them essentially being able to attack the whole cultivar.

I will never look Bananas the same :(

[rzh]

Off-topic but this is a great name for a map/ megawad.

[Dweller Dark]

6 minutes ago, rzh said:

Off-topic but this is a great name for a map/ megawad.

 

Either this or No Country For Old Bananas

[Nekr0s1s]

why don't you come to Brazil? we got lots of bananas. :D

[Endless]

Latinos reading this having some serious PTSD.

 

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

On 11/6/2021 at 10:42 PM, Eddie 2077 said:

 

Either this or No Country For Old Bananas

Yes, yes, YEEEEES. Someone make this a thing!

[Master O]

This thread has gone bananas!

[Azuris]

On 11/4/2021 at 2:15 PM, Gez said:

Bananas are a monoculture because the cultivated banana is sterile.

 

Long story short, the domesticated banana is a triploid species, meaning its chromosomes are in triplets instead of being in pairs like with us. This was accomplished by hybridizing diploid bananas with tetraploid bananas. 2/2 + 4/2 = 3. But 3 is not an even number, so these triploid bananas cannot attempt sexual reproduction, and so they produce no seeds. This is desired, because a wild banana is absolutely full of seeds.

 

.

 

That said, Humanity breeded Fruits and Vegetables since ever to match their needs.

 

I haven't seen Grapes with Seeds for a Decade now, but i do remember them in the 90s still with them.

Also Oranges.

Speaking of them, Oranges are also a Breed we came up with.

Its a Mix between Tangerine (in german its Mandarine ^^) and Pomelo.

 

Thats the Fruit Cucumber comes from (Cucumis hystrix)

 

And this Picture nicely showcases how Water Melons changed.

I've also seen a Video where they said, that they once were small as Berries, but i can't find Evidence right now for that.

 

But back to the Topic, you can still find a big Variety of Bananas in South America.

Some are used to cook, some to eat like a Banana.

 

On 11/6/2021 at 11:47 PM, Endless said:

Latinos reading this having some serious PTSD.

 

 

No, i have no Problem with it :P

 

[Gez]

1 hour ago, Azuris said:

No, i have no Problem with it :P

Chiquita is the rebranding of the United Fruit Company, the corporation single-handedly responsible for the moniker "banana republic" to designate a country as being a ruthless dictatorship bent to the whims of foreign interests. Cf. Banana Massacre.

[act]

11 hours ago, Gez said:

Chiquita is the rebranding of the United Fruit Company, the corporation single-handedly responsible for the moniker "banana republic" to designate a country as being a ruthless dictatorship bent to the whims of foreign interests. Cf. Banana Massacre.

imagine fuckin trampling someones human rights over nanners

that's horrible and hilarious at the same time