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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..."
Strange that, I do think the tendency for westerners to tell people how to live is a far more virulent disease.
If by "westerners" you're referring to the marketing and distribution juggernauts of the food industry, then yes, I agree.
When it comes to food, there's only one rule to follow, and that's to eat and drink according to what you desire. Ask any dog (or, for that matter, any animal) and you'll hear the same answer.
If you can't tell that peaches are yummiest when it's blazing hot outside and they're ready to be picked, or that when there's snow on the ground, stews and root vegetables are preferrable to peaches, I can't help you. The same goes if all you know is bananas and more bananas, or that your taste buds are so jaded that everything has to taste a certain way or have that certain je ne sais quoi of corn syrup to be edible.
Or does it take a medical school degree to see the relationship between seasonal tastes and desires to seasonal nutritional needs?
Then again, maybe the ideas of fresh-picked, or supporting your local farmer, are too quaint a notion in a world where agribusiness and one-stop shopping is the norm. If it is, then why the hell am I forced to support the billion dollar California avocado industry that drains water from the Colorado river, instead of just buying them from Mexico, where they've been growing them longer than anyone remembers?
Nobody has explained yet how Microsoft is behind all of this. How did Bill Gates cause THIS problem?