Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World

Have Banana Prices Gone Insane?

Flooding in Ecuador - the world's largest exporter of bananas - have raised prices of what is traditionally the cheapest fruit in the supermarket. Since January, 2008 - if you buy bananas, you've certainly noticed this - prices have gone way up: in Los Angeles, from about 59 cents to as much as 79 cents a pound.

So far, the largest Ecuadorean banana company - Bonita - has made no statement on the crisis, and banana sales have remained strong - but flat - because the fruit remains the lowest-priced on store shelves. But the situation is an illustration of how fragile the banana market is; if disease should strike Latin America, prices will go up far more than the floods have prompted them to, and for the first time in over a century, apples (which now cost between about a dollar and three dollars a pound) could once again be a better value than the world's favorite fruit.

Despite the troubles, former Ecuadorean presidential candidate Alvaro Noboa remains the richest man in his country, and child labor laws there remain weak. Pressure to keep banana prices down in the face of the flooding crisis will likely affect neither.

This ninny says bananas disprove evolution...

This fellow, Ray Comfort, is using a banana to prove that a "designer" created the universe. The general idea is that only an intelligent force could have created such a naturally convenient item (with a protective wrapper, an easy-to-use "pull tab," perfect shape, etc.) There is so much stupid about this that it would be laughable, if so many people didn't fall for it. The reality, simply put, is that the banana is so "perfect" for human consumption because we've spent seven millennia - longer than just about any other crop - cultivating it to be so. In other words, since we've selected and reselected the best bananas, finally arriving at the one we eat today, the fruit - rather than proving that an unseen hand created it - tells us the opposite: we're the ones who made it what it is, and we used the tools of evolution to do so.

Oh, and also, the other guy in the video is washed-up child star Kirk Cameron, of "Growing Pains." Crediblity achieved.

Watch the video...if you want to read more about Comfort, or the Athiest Test, click below (you'll also find out why peanut butter contains yet another proof of a willful creator of the universe...)

More Chiquita Trouble in Colombia

Last year, Chiquita paid a $25 million fine after admitting supporting terrorist groups in Colombia during 1990s and the early part of this decade. This week, the world's largest banana company was sued by the families of five Florida missionaries killed by the AUC - the right-wing terror faction that the banana company was paid the money to. Three of the missionaries - David Mankins, Mark Rich, and Rick Tenenof - were kidnapped in 1993 and never seen again; they were declared dead nine years later. Steve Welsh and Timothy Van Dyke, also of the New Tribes Mission, were abducted and killed by the AUC in 1994.

A lawyer for the families said that the news of Chiquita's protection payments "started the ball rolling" on the suits, arguing that the money enabled the AUC to arm itself and expand activities. A Chiquita spokesperson called the allegation "absolutely untrue."

In an analysis on the Family Security Matters website, Douglas Farah writes:

"Wow. And now we have evidence the FARC is kidnapping people, producing cocaine and building front companies. A sad and bloody story that will not end soon, and is dragged on by companies like Chiquita who place their business ventures with terrorists above human life."

Strong words, but hard to argue, given the millions of dollars Chiquita gave to the drug-running, murdering AUC (not my opinion; the U.S. Department of Justice, under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, says so) just to bolster banana sales (after all, "protecting employees" meant maintaining a presence in the country - Chiquita could have shut down all Colombia operations.)

Dozens of Americans were killed by guerilla and terrorist groups in Colombia during the time Chiquita was paying the so-called protection money. If the New Tribes suit is successful, look for a run on the courts.

Links:

Orlando Sentinel story

New Tribes Mission

Family Security Matters

Sticker image from Becky Martz's fabulous collection

What does Keira Knightley have to do with our endangered banana?

She's shooting a movie called "The Duchess," where she plays Lady Cavendish, the 18th Century Duchess of Devonshire. Here's the description of the movie from AceShowbiz:

"Duchess chronicles the life of 18th century aristocrat Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire, an ancestor of Princess Diana who was alternately celebrated and reviled for her extravagant political and personal lives. Accompanying Knightley in the cast are Ralph Fiennes as William Cavendish, the fifth Duke of Devonshire, and Dominic Cooper as Charles Grey, the second Earl Grey."

In my book, I explain that our banana - the endangered one - is called the Cavendish. It is named after the Duchess's son, the third William Cavendish, and the sixth duke. This Cavendish - who never married, and was known as "the bachelor duke" - spent his time building up the family estate's gardens and greenhouses. Around 1830, he received a sample banana plant that had been brought to England from the South Pacific. The Cavendish banana's stock eventually was brought to the Caribbean, where it became the "mother plant" for most of the fruit we eat today.

Reducing the carbon impact of supermarket bananas

Don't blame the cute l'il ethylene molecule.

The "miracle" - if you want to call it that - of the banana industry is that it manages to transport a fragile fruit thousands of miles and still get it to your supermarket green, ready to fully ripen ("flecked with brown," as the Chiquita jingle says) in exactly seven days. For over a century, this has been accomplished by controlling the atmosphere that surrounds the bananas in transport.

When fruit ripens, it gives off ethylene gas. Ethylene is a naturally-occurring substance, emitted as fruits ripen, and providing a sort of on-off switch to let other fruits nearby "know" when to ripen. (That's why bananas ripen so evenly across a bunch.) It is also the "world's most commonly produced organic compound," according to a Science Daily report. Fruit distributors keep "ripening rooms," where levels of ethylene can be controlled to hasten or delay ripening.

The report also notes that the current way industrial ethylene is generated for those ripening rooms (as well as dozens of other uses, including as a mecical anesthetic) releases a "miasma of greenhouse gasses." (Sigh.) But scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Lab have recently come up with a new way to produce the gas via creating a high-temperature membrane that blocks the release of greenhouse gasses, allowing only harmless hydrogen to get through.

Monkeys+Bananas=Moola?

California's latest racket lottery game is "Go Bananas," a scratch-off contest that claims odds of about one winner per every five tickets (at a buck each.) That includes tickets that win you other tickets. The chance of getting real cash are twelve to one. In the interest of public service, I've purchased five tickets, labelled them, and will scratch one out every day for the coming week. If you're really bored, check back in tomorrow to see what I won (half of everything I win will go to Bioversity International, the banana conservation organization.)

THE WAY THE TICKET WORKS: You scratch off six boxes. If three match you win. There's a bonus "quick $10 spot" box that - if the number ten is revealed - nets you that amount of money.

MONDAY I LOST. Got a pair of $6.00 scratches, and one $500. Tease. TUESDAY I LOST. Got a pair of $150s. WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY, LOST LOST LOST! Lesson: you can't save bananas with lottery tickets.

Here's a stupid page from the California lottery that lists the entire array of theft devices they offer.

The point of all this, besides making me richer than the book ever could, is to point out - once again - that the origin of the term "go bananas" is not necessarily known. See here.

Amazing Chiquita banana cartoon from the 1940s

Images from the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. Read the full post for direct links and downloadable (!!!) cartoons.

In the 1940s, as disease ravaged banana plantations in Latin America, the major banana companies implemented strategies to convince consumers to buy their particular brand of fruit. The Chiquita banana campaign was, and is, one of the most successful in marketing history. The singing, dancing, sexy fruit was based on the real-screen cinema exploits of Brazilian bombshell Carmen Miranda, who'd famously cavorted with man-sized bananas in the 1942 Busby Berkeley musical, “The Gang’s All Here.”