Ban a banana?

As I am slowly trying to evolve into more of a "locavore", trying to eat more locally-produced foods to reduce the environmental and human costs of production pressures and transit, the simplest thing to do is to initially target fruits and vegetables. About 3 months ago, my main target became the banana.

Admittedly, the Sustainable Family used to consume a lot of bananas every week. I took one in my lunch bag to work every day, and occasionally our son would eat one cut up with breakfast or we’d make a smoothie or banana bread when they became over ripe. Targeting the unsuspecting banana was a no-brainer because no single raw fruit or vegetable in our house came from farther away and, considering what it takes to grow, pick, pack, ship, and sell a banana, there is no way 89¢ a pound is a fair-trade price (see “Banana Republic”).

There is a pretty good Op-Ed piece in the New York Times from 2008 that talks about some of the issues with mass production of the banana for worldwide consumption. Included in that is the fact that of the thousand or so varieties of banana that exist, only one variety is currently mass produced. That variety, the Cavendish, is the second iteration of the mass produced banana because the variety that was originally produced up until the early 1900s, the Gros Michel, was wiped out by a fungus called Panama disease. That fungus quickly spread due to the unnatural concentration of bananas that are grown on plantations. By all accounts, the Cavendish lacks flavor and hardiness compared to the Gros Michel, but the one thing it does have is resistance to Panama disease. That too is changing though, because a similar fungus is currently spreading that affects the Cavendish banana as well.

It is no mystery that most of the fruits and vegetables you buy in the grocery store are single or very limited varieties that are selected, or often genetically-modified, for disease resistance, uniform ripening, or ease of mechanical harvesting. The biggest trade off, as anyone who has ever eaten a real garden tomato knows, is flavor. You don’t need to become a complete "locavore" overnight, but you can make small changes to try to consume more local foods, by visiting farmers markets, shopping for some things at food co-ops, or joining a CSA. The direct cost might be a bit more than what you’ll find on sale at the supermarket, but if you consider all the indirect human and environmental costs as well (which you eventually pay for with your tax dollars), it’s probably a wash. And if flavor is something you savor, I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.