Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World

Banana Juice Research in India is conducted by Nuclear Energy Experts

Atomic banana juice from India

This is really more than you'll ever want to know about extracting juice from bananas, but it is interesting, because the folks at India's Bhaba Atomic Research Centre have figured out ways to squeeze a lot more juice from the fruit than previously was thought to be possible. I don't know why the nuclear scientists are spending time doing this, though my (absolutely uninformed) guess is that atomic research involves advanced centrifuges, and so do the juice extraction techniques described on the linked pages. A second guess might be more political: India's atomic energy program is a huge source of national pride and strategic military importance. Bananas are also a source of national pride - and are of huge importance to the national diet. Maybe it isn't so silly that top minds and resources would be devoted to working on both in a single facility?

Or maybe these guys just have a lot of time on their hands and got thirsty.

Heroic Clerk Saves Store from Banana Attack

Battles Banana-Wielding Thug.

In my book, I note that one observer described the banana as a "weapon of conquest" in Latin America. This doesn't apply in Maryland, where a would-be thief attempted to use the fruit to rob a 7-Eleven - and was denied by a brave clerk.

Incredibly (or maybe not so incredibly), this isn't the first time this has happened - and the last time, the guy got eighteen months in the hoosegow for his malfeasance (third item down.)

This is so yuck I won't even comment...

I'm sorry for this picture.

Click the link, to the Daijiworld newspaper, to find out the results of the study, if you dare...

Bangalore, May 29: Nagasandra, a village 50 km from Bangalore in Doddaballapur taluk, isn’t any different from the hundreds of others surrounding it. But in a remote corner of this small village is a 1-acre banana plantation that has been part of a unique research project: a study on the effect of anthropogenic liquid waste on soil properties and crop growth. In lay-man terms, it is a study on how human urine can be used as fertilizer in agriculture...

read on...

Chiquita doesn't like the iPhone

The company's chief information officer says so here. They probably use Blackberries. The phone pictured above is neither; it is LG's "Banana" model, which is only available in Korea. (OK, so it was a slow banana news week. After the onslaught of disease, terrorism, and Chiquita-related news, thank goodness.)

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.

Baboon Prefers Bananas over Kittehs. Thank Goodness.

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

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...)

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.”

A giant wall of (almost) rotting bananas...

This comes from Oddity Central, via Terri Wahl (aka Auntie Em): New York artist Stefan Sagmeister has installed a panel of 7,200 bananas at the Deitch Projects gallery. This fruited megalith was put up on January 31 as part of the "Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far" exhibit, which hinges around the idea of continuous transformation (the structure itself is in a state of rapid change - rather fetid at this point, since yellow cavendish bananas generally last about seven days before mushing up. The yellow brown barrier tumbles down next week.)

Links: Gallery - Artist - Show>

Dancing Bananas Department: An Assortment

The "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" dancing banana has been an Internet meme since the late 1990s; I've posted it here after numerous requests. Enjoy the original version, and then two more recent tributes.

Do Monkeys Eat Bananas?

At my recent reading at Warwick's bookstore, I was asked why monkeys peel bananas "upside-down." My flippant answer was that I don't answer "monkey questions," but the truth is that I just didn't know. However, Slate, the online magazine that usually writes about important things, answered the question in 2002. "Monkeys are the real experts" in peeling bananas, writes Steven E. Landsberg during a discussion of whether bananas are better eaten - by humans - from the bottom up. (I vote against. He's non-committal; Landsberg also claims to know a guy who "scoops out the seeds" before eating a banana. Since bananas are seedless, this is a miracle, and whoever this fellow is, he needs to talk to banana breeders immediately.)

Some other general monkey/banana questions:

Q: Do monkeys eat bananas?
A: Yes.
Q: Do they peel the bananas prior to eating.
A: Yes - see above.
Q: Why do monkeys eat bananas?
A: Because they're delicious and available - same reason we do. Plus, monkeys are hungry l'il rascals, aren't they?
Q: Are gorillas litterbugs?
A: See first picture.
BONUS QUESTION: Do gorillas get bananas from trees, or vending machines?
A: See the bottom of this post.

(BTW, The monkey is Magilla Gorilla, one of Hannah-Barbera's 1960s stable of challenged anthropomorphic Saturday morning fun-time pals. See more of this huggable, luvable simian after the jump.)

Brazil - world's tastiest bananas?

There was recently some debate on a blog over whether the loss of the endangered Cavendish might not be such a big problem; a poster from Brazil pointed out that there are many unique bananas available in that country.

True enough, though all have problems that most likely make them poor candidates for global Cavendish replacement. Nevertheless, if you get to Brazil, you should try them. Here - again, inspired by the Brazilian blog poster - are three of the "Fabulous Five."

Nanica: This is a banana that stays a bit green, even when ripe. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good-tasting banana. The Brazilian Fruit website describes it as "sweet, tender and pleasantly aromatic."

Prata: The Prata is a less-sweet banana that grows very well and resists lots of diseases. It is a bit sour, which makes it a less-than-great Corn Flake candidate - but a great potential superstar in a market that might diversify to include varietal bananas (just as we've seen the number of apple types available in stores explode from the days when we simply got red delicious and granny smith fruit.)
Here's a recipe for the savory Prata banana pastry pictured above, from the "Taste of Brazil" Web site.

Maça: The Maça is known as an "apple banana," because it has a taste and texture similar to that fruit. They're yummy, though a bit of an acquired taste for Americans used to their sweet (and somewhat bland) Cavendish variety. A Brazilian breeder told me that he had "high hopes" that apple bananas might become a global staple - but added: "As long as the sweeter bananas exist, there's little incentive for banana companies to make that happen."

"Mom on Wet Banana"

Despite the title - which is a direct quote - this video is both amusing, nostalgic (for those familiar with the Wham-O "Slip-N-Slide") and safe for work. (I'm posting it as a memorial to Richard Knerr, co-founder of the company that invented the Wet Banana, as well as the Hula Hoop, Hoppity-Hop, and Frisbee, who passed away last week.)

Two Fabulous Banana Products

There are a dozen major diseases that affect the banana - most virulent, many incurable (the rest often require enough pesticides to turn you into a lobster.) But how to you recognize these maladies? The American Phytopathological Society (APS) has the answer: a CD-ROM called "Diseases of Tropical Fruits, Citrus, and Sugarcane."

That's right - you'll not only get pictures of the stuff that ails bananas, but you'll also feast your eyes on over 550 photographs of angry fungi, bacteria, viruses, worms, and beetles, on the march against avocado, banana, coconut, grapefruit, lemon, lime, mandarine, mango, orange, papaya, and sugarcane. A bargain at $59.00.

If - for some insane reason - an electronic photo album of plant sicknesses isn't up your alley, the "Banana Bunker" from Cultured Containers might be nice: this is a curved, protective plastic container for your fruit. I've already reviewed one of these - the "Banana Guard" - and though I normally attempt to refrain from commentary that might discomfort, to quote Bob Chipeska, those with "tender sensibility," this has to be said: the thing looks like it belongs hidden under your bed (though I like the accordion center, which presumably stretches to fit any size fruit.) The inventor, Paul Stremple, points out that the product not only keeps your banana safe and unblemished, but also safeguards the contents of your backpack or briefcase from the banana. Price: $4.99.

If only Stremple's masterpiece could extend its protective shield to the sick bananas on the CD-ROM.

Order the CD-ROM. Order the banana protector, or, if you happen to be in New England, buy one - no foolin' - at the gift shop of the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art.

God help me...

...I think this is better than Scrabble. (OK, it really isn't, because the tiles get to be a mess and you run out of room on the table. But it remains a great game. I've been playing it non-stop since Christmas day.) The tiles come inside the banana pouch. You make up anagrams. No board required, so you can keep that banana in your pocket...

$14.99, direct from the manufacturer. Or, if you happen to be in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, or Dubai (!?!), you can buy it as a last-minute Christmas gift at Flight 001 stores, where I encountered it.

Made in a plant that processes Peanuts®

Once again, scooped by BoingBoing. In Japan, Lucy and Snoopy hawk popcorn with "banana milk" flavor. Picture from Cory Doctorow's flickr stream.

PS, you can't buy the popcorn stateside, but somewhat yummy Nesquik banana milk is only as far as your local Circle-K, AM-PM, or Kum & Go or - and this is kind of weird - United Dairy Farmers convenience store. The latter is the family business that launched the career of Carl Lindner, former chairman of Chiquita.

Scooped by Boing Boing! Inject stuff into your bananas.

I'll just shoplift the post. I couldn't do better.

Mark Frauenfelder writes: "I think the DestapaBanana is a device that sucks the insides out of a banana while it is still in its peel, so that you can fill resulting cavity with the filling of your choice. The creator of DestapaBanana comments: 'The message is clear, DestapaBanana values and increases the current sales volumes, highlights bananas as a new type of desert and open the doors to more businesses and consumers.'"

There's also a video.

The Belgians are masters of the fruit

There are a lot of things Belgians know about bananas: the scientist Edmond De Langhe is probably the greatest living banana explorer. He's spent much of his life traveling the world, looking for new species of the fruit. His specimens are stored at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium; over 1,000 different banana types are kept there. The collection acts as both a way of preserving the fruit's biodiversity in a rapidly-overdeveloping world, and as the raw material for future banana breeding. One of the Leuven bananas might hold the key to building a more disease-resistant version of the fruit. Much of the work in the attempt to find that grail banana is being overseen by Rony Swennen, a De Langhe protege and advocate (as I am) of the use of genetic modification to broaden the fruit's experimental possibilities.

...more after the jump, including a correction...

Give bananas for the holidays...

Banana trees are pretty easy to cultivate, but getting them to yield fruit is unlikely unless you're in the tropics - or own a large greenhouse. But with luck, you can get some nice leaves and use them to wrap sticky rice (recipes). The banana growing kit above is s $12.98 and comes complete with a plastic monkey.

...even more presents after the jump...

Taking bananas too far? You might consider carrying one of these.

The patented "Banana Guard" solves what is, I suppose, a real problem...

It costs seven bucks, and you can read all about it or even order one here if you like. I don't make any money off this, I swear. This information is presented purely as a public service.

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