Cavendesh

Saturday August 6, 2005 - 2:16AM EDT

A while back I read a short article about how the banana was going to go extinct. The article didn't give much specifics, but it did mention that it was because of a certain type of disease that the common variety of banana we are used to would be wiped out. Bananas are an interesting food. Mainly because of how little the general public knows about this ubiquotous fruit. First off, the banana is a fruit originally from south east asia. Secondly, there are hundreds of varieties of bananas. Most people only know of and have eaten two or three types (the banana, the plantain, and those little bananas you see sometimes). If you want to read more about the banana consult your local library or pickup the August 2005 issue of popular science.

Well my point is, that the banana we know today is actually different from the banana prior to the 70's. They are actually two completely different varieties of bananas. I would wager that more the 95% of the population has no idea that this change took place. Maybe they notice a difference, but would have never attributed it to a different banana variety in stores. Ask your parents if bananas tasted different when they were a kid. They may not pay attention to the fact but then again they might think to themselves, yeah they are different from when I was a kid. It is not like dole or chiquita advertised in a big campaign that they replaced the bananas of old with a new variety. Anyway most of this is from the article in popular science. I thought it was interesting. I had no idea. It did always intrigue me that there were hundreds of varieties of bananas yet I have only ever eaten three of them. Being the exotic fruit lover I am. Damn that last sentence is pathetic.