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Bye Bye Bananas — the Return of Panama Disease
Ant sends in a disturbing report in The Scientist on an imminent threat to worldwide banana production. "The banana we eat today is not the one your grandparents ate. That one — known as the Gros Michel — was, by all accounts, bigger, tastier, and hardier than the variety we know and love, which is called the Cavendish. The unavailability of the Gros Michel is easily explained: it is virtually extinct. Introduced to our hemisphere in the late 19th century, the Gros Michel was almost immediately hit by a blight that wiped it out by 1960. The Cavendish was adopted at the last minute by the big banana companies — Chiquita and Dole — because it was resistant to that blight, a fungus known as Panama disease... [Now] Panama disease — or Fusarium wilt of banana — is back, and the Cavendish does not appear to be safe from this new strain, which appeared two decades ago in Malaysia, spread slowly at first, but is now moving at a geometrically quicker pace. There is no cure, and nearly every banana scientist says that though Panama disease has yet to hit the banana crops of Latin America, which feed our hemisphere, the question is not if this will happen, but when. Even worse, the malady has the potential to spread to dozens of other banana varieties, including African bananas, the primary source of nutrition for millions..."
Fruit is really not so healthy as people have been lead to believe. It is mostly water, sugar, vit C and (some) antioxidants.
Vit C, the original reason for pushing fruit, has proven to be all hype; you only need a small amount to get all the benefit. Except in marathon runners it doesn't help colds.
Sugar is bad news: feeds bacterias and fructose uses up the bodies store of magnesium (which is bad, bad, bad). Modern fruits are large and super-sweet, nothing like what our hunter-gatherer ancestors consumed, and were also generally restricted by season. Eat a crab apple or an ornamental Chinese citrus fruit to see what natural fruit is really like. 12,000 years ago figs were almost 1/6 the size. 3 million years of hunter evolution has yet to catch up with our modern industrial diet of sugar, grains, vegetables oils and marge.
And the jury is out on antioxidants as studies are contradictory.
Bananas offer potassium, but there are healthier ways to get that.
Keep to the semi-sweet fruits, such as cranberries, grapefruit, strawberries, blueberries etc
When you're disappointed by something you read on Slashdot, it's probably time to bring some meaning to your life. Since having kids is clearly out, I suggest that you respond in the affirmative next time you're offered a free personality test.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.