Its a banana. It is not more or less full of germs like the Bananas you have in supermarket today, as long as it is fresh. It may even be a lot better quality then you get today because it never has seen any kind of insect spray or other Industrial Helper we give them today to stay fresh.
The issue is not the comparative number of germs, it is the difference between those germs and the ones her immune system is used to. Germs and immune systems are in a constant arms race, and are constantly evolving. You would think that old germs would be safe for modern immune systems, and would mostly be right, but we still don’t have the exposure protections from older diseases that we have for modern flu strains. If someone found active Spanish flu germs and unleashed them, it would be at least as deadly as it was the first time-possibly worse, and that is germs just 100 years old.
Fortunately it’s before smallpox was introduced to the new world, which would be a real threat for someone who grew up after the diseased was eliminated (no vaccine).
Of course, even allowing for undocumented pre-columbian contact (the Egyptian formula mentioned immediately prior), there’s no evidence that bananas were cultivated in the new world before the 1600s.
Exactly how long ago did humanity begin selectively breeding banana’s of that variety? I know that they in their natural state were not all that edible due to being quite full of seeds.
I’m not an expert but I believe I had heard it was the 1800’s (I could be pulling that out of my ass) but I also thought it had more to do with plantains being more of a starch and therefore needing to be cooked.
This I remember from working in a distribution center (Don’t know what that is? Think of it this way: 100 trucks each completely filled with one type of grocery product arrive from whatever farms, factories, or ports they’re grown or imported from, and unload at the D.C. 100 trucks each filled with 100 different products depart the D.C. for your local grocery stores and supermarkets. Our job was basically stacking pallets with a widely mixed combinations of differently shaped boxes in a way that would hopefully not fall down.)
Bananas, when they are harvested and as they are shipped 100s of miles from the more tropical regions of the world where they grow, are as green as a granny smith apple and just about as hard. Pallets full of banana boxes stacked eight feet high are placed into these garage-like small rooms, the sliding door comes down, and they are gassed with a particular chemical that causes fruit to rapidly ripen, turning yellow (not right away, but probably by the end of the first day they’re on the grocery shelves). The gas is not inherently harmful to humans, but we were still advised not to get caught in the gas chambers when they are running, as we would probably asphyxiate due to lack of good, breathable air. Harmless to eat the gassed fruit too, obviously.
The bananas are still kind of permeated with the ripening gas even after you take them home, which, by the way, is why you’re not supposed to put your bananas together with the rest of your fruit; it will make the other fruit over-ripen and spoil faster.
That gas you mention is probably the gas apples release to ripen themselves. That is why you should never store apples and bananas together, the apples cause the bananas to ripen in hours the way they would normally ripen in days.
The chemical you are talking about is Ethylene. It works as a plant hormone and is released by a variety of ripen fruits causing them to be ripe at about the same time. Totally safe for humans besides being combustible and being heavier then air so asphyxiation would be a problem with to much of it in the room.
Can’t say if they were tastier, but it’s correct that the Gros Michael banana that used to be the most common variety has been mostly replaced by the Cavendish banana.
In the 1950’s a lot of the plantations growing the Gros Michael banana were almost wiped out by the Panama disease that’s caused by a fungus. As the Cavendish banana seemed to be immune to this disease, tasted good and was just as easy to transport it became the most common banana in our stores.
Now new diseases has evolved and it looks like it’s only a question of when the Cavendish will be wiped out.
As for taste… Reading about it it seems the Gros Michael banana tasted more like the artificial banana flavor you may be familiar with. If that’s what you consider “tasty” is another question.
According to Wikipedia the original Gros Michael is still cultivated in some places in south america and South Korea. These are exported to Seattle and to some degree also New York.
A agricultural research center in Honduras has created several Gros Michael hybrids that are able to survive the fungus causing the Panama disease, so it’s possible some GM variant may be what takes over after the Cavendish again.
i bet that is just full of germs
Its a banana. It is not more or less full of germs like the Bananas you have in supermarket today, as long as it is fresh. It may even be a lot better quality then you get today because it never has seen any kind of insect spray or other Industrial Helper we give them today to stay fresh.
The issue is not the comparative number of germs, it is the difference between those germs and the ones her immune system is used to. Germs and immune systems are in a constant arms race, and are constantly evolving. You would think that old germs would be safe for modern immune systems, and would mostly be right, but we still don’t have the exposure protections from older diseases that we have for modern flu strains. If someone found active Spanish flu germs and unleashed them, it would be at least as deadly as it was the first time-possibly worse, and that is germs just 100 years old.
Fortunately it’s before smallpox was introduced to the new world, which would be a real threat for someone who grew up after the diseased was eliminated (no vaccine).
Of course, even allowing for undocumented pre-columbian contact (the Egyptian formula mentioned immediately prior), there’s no evidence that bananas were cultivated in the new world before the 1600s.
yeah, DanD, the author’s lack of knowledge of the Columbian Exchange is a serious deficiency in these earlier strips. I’ve commented on this before.
OOPS, in this particular case… we have to read on, DanD. The author sometimes lays traps for us.
Exactly how long ago did humanity begin selectively breeding banana’s of that variety? I know that they in their natural state were not all that edible due to being quite full of seeds.
I’m not an expert but I believe I had heard it was the 1800’s (I could be pulling that out of my ass) but I also thought it had more to do with plantains being more of a starch and therefore needing to be cooked.
This I remember from working in a distribution center (Don’t know what that is? Think of it this way: 100 trucks each completely filled with one type of grocery product arrive from whatever farms, factories, or ports they’re grown or imported from, and unload at the D.C. 100 trucks each filled with 100 different products depart the D.C. for your local grocery stores and supermarkets. Our job was basically stacking pallets with a widely mixed combinations of differently shaped boxes in a way that would hopefully not fall down.)
Bananas, when they are harvested and as they are shipped 100s of miles from the more tropical regions of the world where they grow, are as green as a granny smith apple and just about as hard. Pallets full of banana boxes stacked eight feet high are placed into these garage-like small rooms, the sliding door comes down, and they are gassed with a particular chemical that causes fruit to rapidly ripen, turning yellow (not right away, but probably by the end of the first day they’re on the grocery shelves). The gas is not inherently harmful to humans, but we were still advised not to get caught in the gas chambers when they are running, as we would probably asphyxiate due to lack of good, breathable air. Harmless to eat the gassed fruit too, obviously.
The bananas are still kind of permeated with the ripening gas even after you take them home, which, by the way, is why you’re not supposed to put your bananas together with the rest of your fruit; it will make the other fruit over-ripen and spoil faster.
That gas you mention is probably the gas apples release to ripen themselves. That is why you should never store apples and bananas together, the apples cause the bananas to ripen in hours the way they would normally ripen in days.
The chemical you are talking about is Ethylene. It works as a plant hormone and is released by a variety of ripen fruits causing them to be ripe at about the same time. Totally safe for humans besides being combustible and being heavier then air so asphyxiation would be a problem with to much of it in the room.
I think this is when the series starts to really go bananas.
AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHH *Grabs his mallet for smashing lame pun makers*
It’s always had apeel for me.
If I had any ice cream, I think I’d split.
We used to have a much tastier variety of banana, but they all were wiped out by some fungal disease, I think.
Can’t say if they were tastier, but it’s correct that the Gros Michael banana that used to be the most common variety has been mostly replaced by the Cavendish banana.
In the 1950’s a lot of the plantations growing the Gros Michael banana were almost wiped out by the Panama disease that’s caused by a fungus. As the Cavendish banana seemed to be immune to this disease, tasted good and was just as easy to transport it became the most common banana in our stores.
Now new diseases has evolved and it looks like it’s only a question of when the Cavendish will be wiped out.
As for taste… Reading about it it seems the Gros Michael banana tasted more like the artificial banana flavor you may be familiar with. If that’s what you consider “tasty” is another question.
According to Wikipedia the original Gros Michael is still cultivated in some places in south america and South Korea. These are exported to Seattle and to some degree also New York.
A agricultural research center in Honduras has created several Gros Michael hybrids that are able to survive the fungus causing the Panama disease, so it’s possible some GM variant may be what takes over after the Cavendish again.
Bananas are not native to the Americas, and were introduced by the Europeans. There could not have been a banana in Central Mexico in 1479
Yes, bananas are from Asia and would have a lot of big seeds.