Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World

Suspended? For this?

Image: Lake County News-Sun

This seems draconian. Even worse is the kid quoted at the end, who sucks up and accepts his sentence.

ZION, Ill., April 23 (UPI) -- A Zion, Ill., high school has suspended 11 seniors involved in a prank that featured a student in a gorilla costume chasing banana-clad seniors in the hallways.

Zion-Benton Township High School handed seven-day suspensions to the costumed students, who phoned in sick before the stunt and wore pantyhose over their heads to conceal their identities during the prank, the Waukegan (Ill.) News-Sun reported Wednesday.

Some of the students said the school overreacted with the harsh punishment.

"What's funnier than a gorilla chasing bananas through a school? Nothing," said Andrew Leinonen, the prank's mastermind and the student who dressed as a gorilla. "It was a harmless prank."

However, others said they were just thankful the school decided not to bar them from prom and graduation.

"We think this is a just punishment," said Brendon Epker, one of the students who dressed as bananas. "We broke rules we shouldn't have broken."

A longer and more explanatory account of the whole affair is here.

A slideshow is here.

These kids deserve medals, not demerits.

Eat bananas, ensure a male heir

The recent Oxford University study showing that eating breakfast made women more likely to conceive male children than females centered specifically around potassium consumption, meaning bananas, whose phallic nature - in some cultures, at least - is believed to have an influence on what goes on in the womb.

"We were able to confirm the old wives' tale that eating bananas, and so having a high potassium intake, was associated with having a boy," said Fiona Matthews, who led the study of 740 first-time mothers published in the strangely-named journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B."

So, there you have it. Do with it what you will. Read more here.

Adios, bananero...

When I visited Honduras, one of the most interesting people I met was Gene Osmark, a former Chiquita researcher who regaled me with stories of both the good - and bad - old days of banana company dominance in Latin America. Gene wasn't one to pull a punch, and my conversations with him were honest, fascinating, and sometimes shocking. I received word that Gene passed away last week; he was, as Ivan Buddenhagen - another renowned banana researcher - remarked, "one of the last of the old guard."

Comment: it is, perhaps, too easy to see that old guard as simply part of a system of exploitation and misery. It is more complicated than that. As a corporate entity, United Fruit - Chiquita - did great damage. It wouldn't be a stretch to call it evil. But many of the scientists who worked for the company tried hard to improve the land they grew bananas on and the lives of the people they lived amidst. This is especially true of the post-1950s era banana researchers, who acutely understood the history that they were a part of.

There are fewer and fewer of these original banana folk left. Anyone interested in the history of the banana industry in Latin America would do well to spend time getting information from a primary source. I recommend you check out "Banana People," a collection of first-hand accounts of life working for Chiquita, assembled by Clyde Stephens, a former bananero now living in Florida.

Here's a description of the book:

"This book is a collection of short stories by BANANA PEOPLE who lived in the Tropics and savored a unique period that is now past history. Fifteen writers relate their favorite adventures, anecdotes, history, intrigues of the banana business and exciting plantation lifestyles of a bygone era. Contributors had a wide range of tropical experiences and include a former president of the United Fruit Company, vice presidents, engineers, a medical doctor, research scientists, accountants, pilots, professors and others."

You can order it for $20, plus shipping, here.

Baboon Prefers Bananas over Kittehs. Thank Goodness.

Though one's gotta say, kitteh don't look too happeh.

Bill Gates funds Banana Research

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has begun one of the largest privately-funded banana genetics research projects; the greenhouse breeding program is concentrating on subsistence bananas - the kind millions of people in the African highlands depend on as their primary source of nutrition - and using DNA engineering and traditional breeding techniques to increase levels of vitamin A and iron in those fruits.

Those are worthy goals, but I find it interesting that building disease resistance - the most important thing that needs to happen in the area surrounding Lake Victoria, where fungal wilts are rapidly destroying banana crops - seems to be a secondary goal, at least according to the article linked above. The project is being run by James Dale, a well-known banana biotech researcher who is quoted in my book.

Meanwhile, in Africa, some Gates foundation work is seen as controversial, precisely because it is technology-oriented. My feeling is that bananas - because they are quite difficult to breed, and because it is very late in the game in terms of improving their strength in the field - require as much technology as they can get. In this case, perhaps, this may be a version of Windows that is able to prevent viruses (sorry.)

The most expensive bananas in America?

A buck a pound - or more - for bananas?

Just spent a weekend with my girlfriend visiting the action-packed and gorgeous little town of McCall, Idaho - about two hours north of Boise. We did some amazing backcountry and nordic skiing - helped by a late-season dump that put almost a foot of fresh powder on the slopes (yes, the life of a struggling author. It kills!) - and generally had a good time checking out the coffee shops and restaurants in the lakeside village (population: 2,500, but getting trendy, according to the New York Times.)

But when we went in search of lunch, we stopped in at a small gourmet shop - the nice City Market & Wine, right on State Highway 55 - and I saw something I'd never, ever encountered: bananas for over a buck a pound (in fact, the price was $1.11.) The clerk explained that these organics - the country of origin wasn't noted, but I could tell from the stickers that they were from Mexico - had been going up for months (see my previous entry on banana prices, here), and had just broken the 99 cent barrier a week earlier.

Yes, McCall's an isolated resort town, and this was a gourmet market, so prices are going to be high. But for me, this is more shocking than gas at four bucks a gallon.

A banana tree in New Hampshire?

I saw this item in the online edition of the Concord Monitor, the daily newspaper of New Hampshire's capitol city. According to the writer, a banana plant has spontaneously yielded fruit in front of Canterbury elementary school. The article linked here claims to have dispatched a photographer, though I couldn't seem to find a photograph. But the item turned out to be true. I contacted principal Mary Morrison, and here's what she wrote back:

"Yes, we have banana tree in our front hallway. The father of a fourth grade student who works in a nursery offered to donate a plant to the school. His son chose the banana tree. This was three years ago. The three foot high plant is now almost ten feet tall and has a bunch of green bananas."

Though indoor banana trees aren't rare, having them yield fruit isn't necessarily common. The first person in the western world to accomplish such a feat was Linneaus, the father of modern taxonomy, and he did it in the 18th century! Hint to the schoolkids: bananas don't ripen until they're picked - that's a risk, though, since they don't always ripen when removed from the tree. I'd suggest starting with one and seeing what happens.

Added, April 2: Pictures, courtesy principal Morrison!