Summary Of Banana The Fate Of The Fruit That Change The World

There’s not a day that goes by that we do and don’t think of the banana. We hardly give much thought to the fruit that we nearly all eat everyday. The banana never fails us as a fruit; it is always (approximately) the same size, shape, and color. Yet, this is also the downfall our banana. The lack of genetic variation of our banana is what can wipe it out with a single strand of disease. Dan Koeppel, in his book Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, takes us through the history of the banana, from the very beginning of mankind to every supermarket stand today. Dan Koeppel first whisks us back to the very beginning of mankind, to the Garden of Eden, where he believes, and presents evidence from different languages and versions
He describes how bananas grow and how the part we consider to be the ‘top’ of the banana, is actually the bottom stem of the fruit. He then travels forward in time to America’s shores where a sea captain introduced the banana to our country when it was still considered an exotic fruit that was grown in tropical regions. Then he tells us about Andrew Preston, a New England produce buyer who wanted more bananas in America. He and a few investors formed the Boston Fruit company, which is known today as one of the largest banana companies and is seen on sticker labels on nearly all bananas – Chiquita. The banana craze began to take off: doctors began recommending bananas to babies and coupons for the fruit were slipped in boxes of cereal and the fruit began to take hold in our culture. Bananas were still grown in tropical climates, mostly in Central and South America, where the American military had to intervene and send troops to many regions to make it
A viral disease called the Panama disease had previously destroyed our grandparents’ banana, the Gros Michel. Banana companies and engineers found the Cavendish, which seemed immune to the disease and cloned the fruit to become the banana we know today. Our banana is virtually seedless, requiring a genetic duplication to create the next fruit. Due to this identical genetic makeup of our banana, it is more easily threatened by a new strain of Panama disease is starting to take over banana plantations across the world, spread via people, water, and on vehicles when the fruit is transported. He explains that the Cavendish only has about thirty years left before it will be completely ravaged by disease, and banana engineers are working around the clock to develop a strand of the fruit that can withstand the virus. Koeppel paints the picture that Americans could possibly give up the banana because we have so many other fruits that are now in our supermarkets, but millions of people living in poverty rely on the banana for survival, and these are the people that cannot afford to see the Cavendish die away. He tells us that the search for a cure is a race against time, something that is not as abundant as the