One single plant, cloned thousands of times. Easily devastated by disease.
If you live in a northern climate, you have to rely on a very complicated and expensive delivery system that will supply you with this fruit that can only be grown in the tropics. And the only way to keep it economical is to create an economy where food prices are artificially kept low because first world countries systematically suppress developing countries that grow bananas into becoming stable economies that would actually provide better wages for farmers and workers who would raise the price of bananas.
We have cheap bananas because we don’t mind living in a world where we abuse farmers and workers to work for pennies to supply us in the first world with cheap bananas.
And just to rub salt into the wound, someone created a clothing store named after the political corruption imposed on those countries to accomplish this: Banana Republic.
I can’t think of what an equivalent would be in terms of offensive marketing, Starving Irish brand potatoes? A Saudi demolition company named after September 11th? A clothing store inspired by antebellum southern US clothes? I guess some companies still use imagery of indigenous people for tobacco products. That seems like it’s in the same vein.
Generally, I try to focus on how beautiful life can be, but damn if there isn’t a crowd trying to make it ugly for others.
I’ve always assumed I misunderstood the brands name but no one has corrected you yet…
To the rabbit hole!
Ok I’m back, it’s just ignorant assholes all the way down
Well I think I just realised why they do it. There’s this longstanding conspiracy theory that whenever a politician does a fuckup they conveniently say keywords associated with the fuckup but put it in a different context (like say, scandal related to trains, so they get into a model train hobby), and they pay advertisers to market that changed context HARD, so if people search up their name plus trains what shows up are articles talking about their new hobby.
Just thought of this because I was searching up “Banana Republic” in the context of neocolonialism (while reading my country’s history) and besides the Wikipedia page being the first result, the next results were that store. And I remembered this reply.
I had never heard of that tactic. Thanks for sharing. I’ll be looking for IRL examples now.
Nixon should have started a hobby in hydraulic engineering specializing in the design and production of water gates, specifically for the Potomac River, including one near that hotel/office/apartment complex that’s name I forget.
Twin Towers wholesale outlet: our prices are coming down fast!
Pearl harbor casual clothing.
Jim crows bar and grill.
That last one is just something that could’ve realistically existed.
…and would continue to exist, unaltered, well up until the 70s when, finally, it was modified due to growing public awareness; and only because of that.
Sambo’s managed to barely survive until 2020.
So they can feed disease too? Is there anything bananas can’t do?
Rebound from a viral pandemic, RIP Gros Michel
Only heard about those via my dad, never got to try one…
You’d reminded me that I still wanted to try these, someday, and I went looking, again, for if there was an easier means (other than travelling to Hawaii); I found this place that delivers within the contiguous states: https://miamifruit.org/products/gros-michel-banana-box-order. If you had wanted to try one; more expensive, due to the fragility of the crop, but viable.
Thanks for that, but holy crap that’s expensive
😄
They aren’t extinct, they just aren’t commercially viable to grow on large scales any more. A few isolated pockets of the trees survived the blight. A quick web search will turn up someone selling some if you really want to try them but like the other poster said if you’ve tried fake banana flavor you’ve tried gros michel.
That’s a myth about the flavour. Although TIL they do smell strongly like artificial banana flavour.
if you’ve ever had banana laffy taffy you’ve had the artificially created flavor of one.
And I find it preferable to the real thing
thousands
Millions at least
The monopoly that supplies most bananas to the “western” world has long been known to be a murderous corrupt corp? That’s the one major drawback to that chewy sweet banana fiber.
That isn’t bananas fault though.
yeah guys im not a part of that whole movement
Holup. Are you a banana dealer who is large or a dealer with a large banana? 🧐
i deal bananas that are large
The trick is to get the green/light green bananas as they begin to ripen. Buying yellow to slightly darker yellow bananas will shorten their shelf life tremendously.
I’m not a fan of freezing them as they’ll still continue to ripen. Your best case scenario if you start seeing them browning out is to make some banana bread or mix it in cupcake/cake mix.
Or stick it up your butt.
The brown bananas are still good 😏 more sweet and some alc 👌🏻
Banana milkshake is where all the dark bananas go for me.
yuck, banana bread and cupcake are both so full of added wheat and sugar that the product no longer counts as whole fruit.
You could just use spelt or even avena instead. Add some baking powder and raisins if you like them.
- 2 Bananas
- 60g flour
- 40g raisins (or any other berry, raspberrys are amazing)
- 1-2 teaspoons baking powder
Mix it, form small balls and bake it at 175° for around 15 minutes.
okay, that recipe is less than half bread, can substitute both the grain and the fruit of a meal
Do the 16p and 14p bananas taste better than the 13p bananas?
Oh, these aren’t meant to be eaten. They’re ‘for scale’ bananas and the price is based on manufacturing accuracy.
It’s weight-based.
while that looks dumb, keeping them separate helps them last longer.
But they don’t breathe under the plastic, accelerating the ripening
Bad thing: banana Republic. Other than that… 100% legit.
No flared base
Decomposes, no problrm. Self unplugging, if you will.
Based and “no need for flared base”-pilled
…zero mess? What exactly are you doing with the “wrapper?” You know you’re not supposed to eat it, right?
Throw it on the ground as a trap for the one walking behind you
Just throw it behind your kart to slow down your opponents
I prefer to accidentally throw it in front of my own kart.
You can absolutely eat banana peels, cooked or raw. They’re full of fiber, antioxidants, all your basic fruit goodness. I don’t eat them, but I understand the people who do.
I imagine they’d be chock full of pesticides tho
Though generally with fruits the added amount of vitamins and all the good stuff that’s concentrated in the skin far outweighs the small amount of pesticides you might consume.
Is this AI slop?? Because I don’t believe this
You can eat it. Proof: me.
I’m calling the cops.
Get out.
The silver lining is that it’s biodegradable. And good as compost
What do you mean zero cleanup? Now I have to carry around a banana peel all day. All hail apples (yes, I eat the core).
I eat the core too! There’s nowt wrong with eating the core
Angrily eats banana peel…
Make eye contact throughout, show dominance
It contains cyanides, so if you eat too many apples this way, expect headache
me too! but this one time in high school calculus, my classmate beside me ate the core and put the seeds and stem on a napkin, like i usually did. but then he proceeded to pour them all into his hand and SWALLOW IT IN ONE BIG GULP, and ngl it really pissed me off for some reason. after that, i preferred eating oranges.
do you just spit out the seeds?
I eat those too
lol i know there isn’t a lot of cyanide in the seeds but there is some seems like intentionally eating them could be bad long term
Nah, your body gets rid of cyanide very quickly and you’d have to eat at least 15 apples in a single sitting before it even begins to do anything. This is assuming you’re some kind of weird psycho who thoroughly chews each seed instead of just swallowing them like a regular psycho — in which case, they would go out exactly as they came in and release no cyanide whatsoever.
History of banana and why it’s cheap.
History of everything you can plant under a society that puts profit over people’s life
Jesus Christ you people need to read more history.
you mean more propaganda.
Exactly what the fuck do you think you’re referencing?
Look up the history of the banana trade.
Banana smell is so powerful if you leave a banana in the fridge over night any unprotected food will taste like a banana
What if I hire a bodyguard for the banana?
A feature not a bug
They tend to go extinct every so often and need a different variety to replace them.
Is there concern about the cavendish?
Yes. Cavendish is in trouble.
I could be just parroting a myth, but aren’t they all genetic clones? So anything that evolves to attack one has evolved to attack all, potentially quickly wiping out just about all of them. And I think this happened with the banana we used before this one so now they’re rare and super expensive.
Through standardizing the banana, we’ve removed biodiversity.
They are a monoculture. Nature hates a monoculture. There’s a reason those don’t happen naturally.
Its almost as good as potato!
As much as I love potatoes and that they came from this little corner in the world, unlike bananas they have to be cleaned up. I know this because my father grew potatoes all of his life. Alas bananas won in that aspect.
And cooked.
Don’t they cost, like, 10 dollars a piece?
There’s always bananas in the money stand.
Not when you haven’t got a complete moron at the helm slapping tariffs on everything he can think of. Here’s an example from a first world country (78p if you cba to click): https://groceries.morrisons.com/products/fyffes-bananas/115455355
I think the comment you’re replying to was a reference to The Office, a la “It’s one banana, what could it cost, $10?”
This is Arrested Development erasure.
As much as I’d love to respond with a troll face and pretend that was purposeful ragebait, I’m not gonna lie - having watched neither, I legit thought it was The Office lmao. Thanks for the correction =]
I mean the queerphobia, ableism and racism in Arrested Development is off the charts, and a lot if not all of the cultural references no longer hold up, so I wouldn’t recommend it. The office, well, it’s not great but it’s not as bad if you need some slop to play in the background.
Good to know, I will continue with my plan to not watch it, thanks lol
How dare.
Nearly no one got your reference :D
I mean, they should, but because of what amounts to basically slave labor, they don’t cost near that much in the US. That’s the big evil of bananas these days. I love them, but I don’t buy them.
these days
No, this is always been the case with bananas. There’s a reason why we have the term banana republic. Literally every banana ever bought by an American has been drenched in blood.
There are more involved videos on the subject but this is the shortest and most concise that I could find.
At least it’s tasty blood?
Idk, I’m trying to find the silver lining here.
The sort of silver lining here is that America is finally getting a taste of our own medicine.
That is to say, Russia interfering with our elections in order to install a president more friendly to their interests. And then that President going hog wild fascist and veritably wrecking our constitutional government in order to service his own desires for power.
I pay 1€ for a french banana in mainland France
they grow bananas in France? that’s bananas!
Yup, french
coloniesislands
Fun fact: The banana was actually a significant part of the industrial revolution. This was because coal miners could eat it without needing to wash their hands.
