Deep Dive: Bananas
A love letter to the humble banana.
Lest you Subsnax readers think all I eat is processed food, let me reassure you that I eat plenty of non-processed, healthy food/snacks. I eat a salad for lunch almost every day. I attempt to drink water. I consume fruit — including, but not limited to, bananas. And in this Subsnax: Deep Dive edition, we’ll take a closer look at this marvelous fruit.
Bananas 101
Did you know that bananas are botanically considered a berry? All banana plants are genetically identical, which is a problem when it comes to resisting disease (more on that later).
Bananas originated in Southeast Asia, and banana plantations were subsequently cultivated in areas like India, China, the Philippines, Ecuador, and Brazil. Once refrigeration and transportation like railroads and steamships became available, it made it easier to transport bananas to other regions. Companies like Chiquita and Dole were big bananas in the banana industry (and remain so today).
Most bananas that are picked for exporting are ripened in special rooms filled with ethylene gas to induce ripening. That bright yellow color that signals “ripe banana” to so many people actually comes from the artificial ripening process.
My personal banana history
Here’s the thing about me and bananas: I did not like them as a child. I found the smell off-putting, and I don’t think I consumed a banana until I was about 21 years old. So how did I finally come to love bananas? The gateway to bananas, for me, was smoothies. I had a friend who loved smoothies — and the key, she told me, was frozen bananas. I asked if I could drink a smoothie without bananas in it, and she told me it just wouldn’t be the same — that the bananas gave the whole thing a smooth, creamy consistency and a certain sweetness. So I tried a smoothie with a little bit of banana in it, and then I increased the banana quotient (the BQ, if you will), and before I knew it, I was drinking smoothies with about half a banana in them. I guess eventually, I decided to try the fruit itself and found that, because of my frog-in-a-pot-of-hot-water situation with bananas in smoothies, I’d come to actually like the taste of bananas. I think I had also been opposed, in my early years, to the texture of bananas, which can be unpredictable. A mushy banana is no good; neither is one that isn’t ripe enough. But if you can get a banana at the right stage of its ripeness, it’s delicious. Also, while I now enjoy bananas, I generally can’t stand artificial banana flavoring — something about it always seems off to me.
Bananas are BRATty
The other thing about me and bananas is that they are one of the few foods that consistently don’t upset my stomach, which is pretty important to me since I have terrible digestion. Bananas are part of the BRAT diet (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast), which is often recommended for people having gastrointestinal woes. Usually, if you can’t tolerate almost any other food, you can tolerate bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast.
I always keep bananas in my house — everyone else in my household (including my dog, Murray) loves bananas. When they get too ripe, I peel them, slice them up, pop them in a storage bag, and put them in the freezer to add to smoothies at a later time. I am still a fan of smoothies, as is my son (he is biased, but says I make the best smoothies).
That’s bananas!
I love that bananas are associated with jocularity, and they are arguably the funniest fruit. What’s funny about a strawberry? Not much. Perhaps it’s the alliteration and assonance contained right in the word “banana”. Maybe it’s their phallic shape. The term “bananas” also means “insane or extremely silly.” And the “top banana” is the most important person in an organization; no one wants to be “second banana.” And of course, banana peels are forever tied to slapstick humor and the old gag of people slipping on banana peels.
As a fan of bananas and banana-related hilarity, I own and regularly wear this hat (and I receive many compliments on it):
Here’s a fun banana fact: The most common banana variety eaten today around the world is the Cavendish, which is much less slippery than the more common banana varieties of yore. The Gros Michel was the reigning banana until a fruit blight wiped most of the Gros Michels out, starting in the 1920s. The Cavendishes gained popularity by the 1950s. People who have lived long enough to have tasted the Gros Michel and the Cavendish say that Cavendishes are bland compared to Gros Michels (I guess they weren’t so gross). The Gros Michel had a much slippier peel than the Cavendish — so when the “slipping on a banana peel” gag was first invented, banana peels really were more slippery. Plus, sanitation in crowded areas was not so great back then so slippery banana peels were more hazardous.
Delicious and nutritious
Bananas contain fiber, as well as potassium, vitamin B6, and vitamin C. In addition to terrible digestion, I’ve also suffered from mysterious foot and leg cramps for years, and have been told that potassium can help alleviate these. So that’s another reason for me to love bananas. Interestingly enough, the amount of starch in bananas changes pretty drastically as the banana ripens and the starch is converted to sugars.
Yes! We have bananas, but they’re not local
Just about the only bad news about bananas (aside from that whole issue of them not being resistant to a blight that could wipe them out and render them obsolete) is that if you don’t live in a region that produces bananas, they are definitely not local food. The cultivation and transportation of bananas is not exactly eco-friendly and often involves pesticides and fossil fuels.
Bananas are this gal’s best friend
Bananas might not provide as much comedy fodder as they once did, but they’re still very tasty, nutritious, pretty affordable, and make for a great smoothie or snack on their own. How many other snacks come in their own carrying cases, anyway?
Despite my rocky start with bananas, I’ve really come to love and appreciate them and I hope they don’t disappear off the face of the earth. Try not to get in a depressive state about how bananas might not exist one day and enjoy one today. I hope it is at a #4-6 on the ripeness scale.
If you want to take even more of a deep dive into the history of bananas, I recommend the book Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World by Dan Koeppel and/or this fascinating New Yorker article on bananas.
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I used to get a lot of bad leg cramps. One day I mentioned this to a coworker and she told me I should try eating a banana when I walk a long ways. It really worked. Bananas have potassium! Great snack.