April 10, 1633
The banana is sold for the first time in London.
In fact, bananas existed much earlier. The first settlers are believed to have arrived in Papua New Guinea in 5,000 BC. and soon, they started growing bananas. About the same time bananas were planted in the Malay Archipelago, which includes Indonesia and the Philippines.
In the intervening years, the banana survived all eras, raised and overthrew governments and boosted economies that had nowhere else to rely.
In the early 20th century, the US military overthrew regimes and slaughtered thousands in Central America during the so-called “Banana Wars” in order not to disrupt the fruit trade and the profits of the companies involved.
Today, with the help of aggressive marketing, the banana is a fruit that is unlike any other. It is the first consumed fruit in the world, with a fanatical audience that extends from babies to the elderly. If banana were a country, it would be a superpower.
As Dan Koeppel, author of “Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World,” notes, the banana is one of the most interesting organisms in the world. In fact, the plant from which the banana comes is not a tree but an herb and the banana is not a fruit but a berry.
The story of the banana begins in the jungles of Southeast Asia, to become the largest crop of fruit in the world and the fourth largest crop in the food industry, behind wheat, rice and milk.
Americans eat 3 million tons of bananas a year, an impressive amount for a country that produces very few bananas. Banana is the first best-selling item in Walmart stores.
And although once there were thousands of varieties of bananas – fluffy, striped, strawberry flavored and others that still exist in some parts of the world – today bananas are generally one on earth. Because today’s banana is a “miracle” of biology, more than any other processed food, such as beef, eggs or bread. This extreme optimization of banana production, of course, poses a great biological risk to the fruit itself.
Panama’s disease, a fungus that “chokes” the roots, threatens the Cavendish variety, which dominates the world.
And since these bananas are clones, it means that one disease can kill the whole species. That’s 99% of the bananas sold around the world and with it, Cavendish’s $ 25 billion industry.
Money Review
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