Bananas are native to southeast asia and australia, but are now grown throughout the tropics. All parts of the banana can be used: the flower/heart of the banana is often served raw with dips or can be cooked into soups or currie. The core of the banana trunk is used mainly in the Burmese dish mohinga. while the leaves can be used for cooking or for shelter. It is also possible to use banana to make clothing such as kimonos or even table clothes. They even use banana to make paper! Bananas are very hard to transport because they are damaged easily. For this reason exported bananas are often picked green and than put into a gas chamber. In this chamber they are treated with ethylene gas to help with ripening. So you know: a retailer can order ‘ungassed’ bananas and in that case will be fully green when they arrive to market. Bananas shouldn’t be refrigerated because this stalls there ripening and just causes them to turn gray and rot. It is possible to be allergic to bananas there are two forms of banana allergy: one is oral allergy syndrome which can cause itching and swelling in the mouth or throat within one hour after eatinga banana and is related to birch tree or other pollen allergies, while the other is related to latex allergies which causes potentially serious upper gastrointestinal symptoms. (info from the encylopedia)
Comments
good info, thanks! are the organic bananas gassed too? just curious, i’ll probably keep eating them either way.
from what i understood from my internet searchings even organic bananas are clones because wild bananas have seeds. while the ones we eat dont! but i wouldn’t let this info scare anyone off from eating bananas! but otherwise you are correct…there already is certain banana breeds that are dieing off!!!
What’s creepy about plant clones? Have you never started a plant from a cutting? That’s cloning. Ever have a spider plant? Every “spider” is a clone. Cloning is a common and natural way many plants reproduce. In the case of bananas, an herbaceous plant, clones are propagated asexually from offshoots of the plant (just like those spiders on your spider plant).
No really they are seedless!!! i thought the same thing!!! but if the little black things in the bananas are seeds they are infertile seeds that won’t grow into anything…maybe they are like the little white seeds in seedless watermelon? but wild bananas have BIG HARD seeds!