A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry
Musa species are native to tropical Indomalaya and Australia; they were probably Domestication in New Guinea. They are grown in 135 countries, primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent to make banana paper and , while some are grown as . The world's largest producers of bananas in 2022 were India and China, which together accounted for approximately 26% of total production. Bananas are eaten raw or cooked in recipes varying from curries to , , fruit preserves, or simply baked or steamed.
Worldwide, there is no sharp distinction between dessert "bananas" and cooking "plantains": this distinction works well enough in the Americas and Europe, but it breaks down in Southeast Asia where many more kinds of bananas are grown and eaten. The term "banana" is applied also to other members of the genus Musa, such as the Musa coccinea ( Musa coccinea), the Musa velutina ( Musa velutina), and the Fe'i bananas. Members of the genus Ensete, such as the Ensete glaucum ( Ensete glaucum) and the economically important false banana ( Ensete ventricosum) of Africa are sometimes included. Both genera are in the banana family, Musaceae.
Banana are subject to damage by parasitic and insect pests, and to Fungal infection and diseases, one of the most serious being Panama disease which is caused by a Fusarium fungus. This and black sigatoka threaten the production of , the main kind eaten in the Western world, which is a triploid Musa acuminata. Plant breeders are seeking new varieties, but these are difficult to breed given that commercial varieties are seedless. To enable future breeding, banana germplasm is conserved in multiple around the world.
Description
The banana plant is the largest
herbaceous flowering plant.
All the above-ground parts of a banana plant grow from a structure called a
corm. Plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy with a
appearance, but what appears to be a trunk is actually a
pseudostem composed of multiple leaf-stalks (petioles). Bananas grow in a wide variety of soils, as long as it is at least deep, has good drainage and is not compacted. They are fast-growing plants, with a growth rate of up to per day.
The leaves of banana plants are composed of a stalk (petiole) and a blade (lamina). The base of the petiole widens to form a sheath; the tightly packed sheaths make up the pseudostem, which is all that supports the plant. The edges of the sheath meet when it is first produced, making it tubular. As new growth occurs in the centre of the pseudostem, the edges are forced apart. Cultivated banana plants vary in height depending on the variety and growing conditions. Most are around tall, with a range from 'Dwarf Cavendish' plants at around to 'Gros Michel' at or more.
The banana fruits develop from the banana heart, in a large hanging cluster called a bunch, made up of around nine tiers called hands, with up to 20 fruits to a hand. A bunch can weigh .
The fruit has been described as a "leathery berry".
File:Banana corm.jpg|A corm, about across
File:Young Banana Sapling - Kerala - IMG 3447.jpg|Young plant
File:M. acuminata x balbisiana female flower detail.jpg|Female flowers have petals at the tip of the ovary
File:2018 06 TropicalIslands IMG 2170.jpg|'Tree' showing fruit and inflorescence
File:Banana single rows.jpg|Single row planting
File:M. acuminata x balbisiana.JPG|Inflorescence, partially opened
Evolution
Phylogeny
A 2011 phylogenomic analysis using nuclear genes indicates the
phylogeny of some representatives of the
Musaceae family. Major edible kinds of banana are shown in
boldface.
- ‡ Many cultivated bananas are hybrids of M. acuminata x M. balbisiana (not shown in tree).
Work by Li and colleagues in 2024 identifies three subspecies of M. acuminata, namely sspp. banksii, malaccensis, and zebrina, as contributing substantially to the Ban, Dh, and Ze subgenomes of triploid cultivated bananas respectively.
Taxonomy
The genus
Musa was created by
Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
The name may be derived from
Antonius Musa, physician to the Emperor
Augustus, or Linnaeus may have adapted the Arabic word for banana,
.
The ultimate origin of
musa may be in the Trans–New Guinea languages, which have words similar to "#muku"; from there the name was borrowed into the Austronesian languages and across Asia, accompanying the cultivation of the banana as it was brought to new areas, via the Dravidian languages of India, into Arabic as a
Wanderwort.
[ which (p. 169) cites ] The word "banana" is thought to be of West African origin, possibly from the
Wolof language word banaana]], and passed into
English language via
Spanish language or Portuguese.
Musa is the type genus in the family Musaceae. The APG III system assigns Musaceae to the order Zingiberales, part of the commelinid clade of the flowering plants. Some 70 species of Musa were recognized by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families ;
The classification of cultivated bananas has long been a problematic issue for taxonomists. Linnaeus originally placed bananas into two species based only on their uses as food: Musa sapientum for dessert bananas and Musa paradisiaca for plantains. More species names were added, but this approach proved to be inadequate for the number of in the primary center of diversity of the genus, Southeast Asia. Many of these cultivars were given names that were later discovered to be synonyms.
In a series of papers published from 1947 onward, Ernest Cheesman showed that Linnaeus's Musa sapientum and Musa paradisiaca were cultivars and descendants of two wild seed-producing species, Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana, both first described by Luigi Aloysius Colla.
The accepted Botanical name for most groups of cultivated bananas are Musa acuminata Colla and Musa balbisiana Colla for the ancestral species, and Musa × paradisiaca L. for the hybrid of the two.
An unusual feature of the genetics of the banana is that chloroplast DNA is inherited maternally, while mitochondrial DNA is inherited paternally. This facilitates taxonomic study of species and subspecies relationships.
Informal classification
In regions such as North America and Europe,
Musa fruits offered for sale can be divided into small sweet "bananas" eaten raw when ripe as a dessert, and large starchy "plantains" or
, which do not have to be ripe. Linnaeus made this distinction when naming two "species" of
Musa. Members of the "plantain subgroup" of banana cultivars, most important as food in West Africa and Latin America, correspond to this description, having long pointed fruit. They are described by Ploetz et al. as "true" plantains, distinct from other cooking bananas.
The cooking bananas of East Africa belong to a different group, the East African Highland bananas. Further, small farmers in Colombia grow a much wider range of cultivars than large commercial plantations do,
History
Domestication
The earliest domestication of bananas (
Musa spp.) was from naturally occurring
parthenocarpic (seedless) individuals of
Musa banksii in
New Guinea. These were cultivated by Papuans before the arrival of Austronesian-speakers. Numerous
of bananas have been recovered from the
Kuk Swamp archaeological site and dated to around 10,000 to 6,500
Before Present.
humans in this area began domestication in the late
Pleistocene using
transplanting and early
tillage methods.
By the early to middle of the
Holocene the process was complete.
From New Guinea, cultivated bananas spread westward into Island Southeast Asia. They hybridized with other (possibly independently domesticated)
subspecies of
Musa acuminata as well as
M. balbisiana in the Philippines, northern New Guinea, and possibly
Halmahera. These hybridization events produced the triploid cultivars of bananas commonly grown today.
The banana was one of the key crops that
Vavilov center in Papua New Guinea.
Spread
From Island Southeast Asia, bananas became part of the staple domesticated crops of Austronesian peoples.
These ancient introductions resulted in the banana subgroup now known as the true plantains, which include the East African Highland bananas and the Pacific plantains (the Iholena bananas and Maoli-Popo'ulu subgroups). East African Highland bananas originated from banana populations introduced to Madagascar probably from the region between Java, Borneo, and New Guinea; while Pacific plantains were introduced to the Pacific Islands from either eastern New Guinea or the Bismarck Archipelago.
21st century discoveries of in Cameroon dating to the first millennium BCE
Another wave of introductions later spread bananas to other parts of tropical Asia, particularly Indochina and the Indian subcontinent.
Arab Agricultural Revolution
The banana may have been present in isolated locations elsewhere in the Middle East on the eve of
Islam. The spread of Islam was followed by far-reaching diffusion. There are numerous references to it in Islamic texts (such as poems and
) beginning in the 9th century. By the 10th century, the banana appeared in texts from Palestine and Egypt. From there it diffused into North Africa and
Al-Andalus during the Arab Agricultural Revolution.
An article on banana tree cultivation is included in Ibn al-'Awwam's 12th-century agricultural work,
Kitāb al-Filāḥa (
Book on Agriculture).
[ (pp. 368–370 (Article XLVIII)] During the Middle Ages, bananas from
Granada were considered among the best in the Arab world.
Bananas were certainly grown in the Christian Kingdom of Cyprus by the late medieval period. Writing in 1458, the Italian traveller and writer Gabriele Capodilista wrote favourably of the extensive farm produce of the estates at Episkopi, near modern-day
Limassol, including the region's banana plantations.
Early modern spread
In the early modern period, bananas were encountered by European explorers during the Magellan expedition in 1521, in both
Guam and the
Philippines. Lacking a name for the fruit, the ship's historian Antonio Pigafetta described them as "figs more than one palm long."
Bananas were introduced to
South America by Portuguese sailors who brought them from West Africa in the 16th century.
Southeast Asian banana cultivars, as well as
abaca grown for fibers, were introduced to North and Central America by the Spanish from the Philippines, via the
Manila galleons.
File:Banana ancestors (Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana) original range.png|Original native ranges of the ancestors of modern edible bananas. Musa acuminata (green), Musa balbisiana (orange)
Acta Eruditorum, 1734
Plantation cultivation
In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portuguese colonists started banana plantations in the Atlantic Islands, Brazil, and western Africa.
North Americans began consuming bananas on a small scale at very high prices shortly after the Civil War, though it was only in the 1880s that the food became more widespread.
As late as the
Victorian Era, bananas were not widely known in Europe, although they were available.
The earliest modern plantations originated in Jamaica and the related Western Caribbean Zone, including most of Central America. Plantation cultivation involved the combination of modern transportation networks of steamships and railroads with the development of refrigeration that allowed more time between harvesting and ripening. North American shippers like Lorenzo Dow Baker and Andrew Preston, the founders of the Boston Fruit Company started this process in the 1870s, with the participation of railroad builders like Minor C. Keith. Development led to the multi-national giant corporations like Chiquita and Dole.
Small-scale cultivation
The vast majority of the world's bananas are cultivated for family consumption or for sale on local markets. They are grown in large quantities in India, while many other Asian and African countries host numerous small-scale banana growers who sell at least some of their crop. Peasants with smallholdings of 1 to 2 acres in the Caribbean produce bananas for the world market, often alongside other crops.
[Clegg, Peter " The Development of the Windward Islands Banana Export Trade: Commercial Opportunity and Colonial Necessity ," Society for Caribbean Studies Annual Conference Papers 1 (2000)] In many tropical countries, the main cultivars produce green (unripe) bananas used for
cooking. Because bananas and plantains produce fruit year-round, they provide a valuable food source during the
hunger season between harvests of other crops, and are thus important for global
food security.
Modern cultivation
Bananas are propagated asexually from offshoots. The plant is allowed to produce two shoots at a time; a larger one for immediate fruiting and a smaller "sucker" or "follower" to produce fruit in 6–8 months. As a non-seasonal crop, bananas are available fresh year-round.
They are grown in some 135 countries.
Cavendish
In global commerce in 2009, by far the most important cultivars belonged to the triploid
Musa acuminata AAA group of Cavendish group bananas.
Disease is threatening the production of the Cavendish banana worldwide. It is unclear if any existing cultivar can replace Cavendish bananas, so various hybridisation and genetic engineering programs are attempting to create a disease-resistant, mass-market banana. One such strain that has emerged is the Taiwanese Cavendish or Formosana.
Ripening
Export bananas are picked green, and ripened in special rooms upon arrival in the destination country. These rooms are air-tight and filled with ethylene gas to induce ripening. This mimics the normal production of this gas as a ripening hormone.
Ethylene stimulates the formation of
amylase, an
enzyme that breaks down starch into sugar, influencing the taste. Ethylene signals the production of
pectinase, a different enzyme which breaks down the
pectin between the cells of the banana, causing the banana to soften as it ripens.
The vivid yellow color many consumers in temperate climates associate with bananas is caused by ripening around , and does not occur in Cavendish bananas ripened in tropical temperatures (over ), which leaves them green.
Storage and transport
Bananas are transported over long distances from the tropics to world markets.
To obtain maximum shelf life, harvest comes before the fruit is mature. The fruit requires careful handling, rapid transport to ports, cooling, and refrigerated shipping. The goal is to prevent the bananas from producing their natural ripening agent, ethylene. This technology allows storage and transport for 3–4 weeks at . On arrival, bananas are held at about and treated with a low concentration of ethylene. After a few days, the fruit begins to ripen and is distributed for final sale. Ripe bananas can be held for a few days at home. If bananas are too green, they can be put in a brown paper bag with an apple or tomato overnight to speed up the ripening process.
Sustainability
The excessive use of fertilizers contributes greatly to
eutrophication in streams and lakes, harming aquatic life, while expanding banana production has led to deforestation. As soil nutrients are depleted, more forest is cleared for plantations. This causes soil erosion and increases the frequency of flooding.
Voluntary sustainability standards such as Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade are being used to address some of these issues. Banana production certified in this way grew rapidly at the start of the 21st century to represent 36% of banana exports by 2016.
Breeding
Mutation breeding can be used in this crop.
Aneuploidy is a source of significant variation in
allotriploid varieties. For one example, it can be a source of TR4 resistance.
have been devised to screen for such aberrations and for possible resulting disease resistances.
Wild
Musa spp. provide useful resistance genetics, and are vital to breeding for TR4 resistance, as shown in
introgressed resistance from wild relatives.
Bananas form a hybrid-
Polyploidy complex; hybrids can be diploid, triploid, tetraploid, or pentaploid, i.e. they may have 2, 3, 4, or 5 sets of
. This makes them difficult to breed as hybrids are often sterile, in addition to the challenge of breeding seedless (parthenocarpic) varieties.
The Honduran Foundation for Agricultural Research has bred a seedless banana that is resistant to both Panama disease and black Sigatoka disease. The team made use of the fact that "seedless" varieties do rarely produce seeds; they obtained around fifteen seeds from some 30,000 cultivated plants, pollinated by hand with pollen from wild Asian bananas.
Production and export
| + 2022 production (in millions of tonnes) |
|
| 34.5 |
| 11.8 |
| 10.4 |
| 9.2 |
| 9.0 |
| 8.0 |
| 6.9 |
| 6.9 |
| 5.7 |
| 5.5 |
| 5.0 |
| 5.0 |
| 4.9 |
| 4.6 |
| 4.1 |
| 3.1 |
| 2.6 |
| 2.6 |
| 2.6 |
| 2.5 |
| 2.5 |
| 2.4 |
| 179.3 |
Source: FAOSTAT of the United Nations |
, bananas are exported in larger volume and to a larger value than any other fruit.
Pests
Bananas are damaged by a variety of pests, especially nematodes and insects.
Nematodes
Banana roots are subject to damage from multiple species of parasitic
.
Radopholus similis causes nematode root rot, the most serious nematode disease of bananas in economic terms.
[Sekora, N. S. and W. T. Crow. Burrowing nematode, Radopholus similis. EENY-542. University of Florida IFAS. 2012.] Root-knot is the result of infection by species of
Meloidogyne,
while root-lesion is caused by species of
Pratylenchus,
and spiral nematode root damage is the result of infection by
Helicotylenchus species.
Insects
Among the main insect pests of banana cultivation are two beetles that cause substantial economic losses, the banana borer
Cosmopolites sordidus and the banana stem weevil
Odoiporus longicollis. Other significant pests include
and scarring beetles.
Diseases
Although in no danger of outright extinction, bananas of the Cavendish group, which dominate the global market, are under threat.
There is a need to enrich banana
biodiversity by producing diverse new banana varieties, not just focusing on the Cavendish.
Its predecessor '
Gros Michel', discovered in the 1820s, was similarly dominant but had to be replaced after widespread infections of Panama disease.
Monocropping of Cavendish similarly leaves it susceptible to disease and so threatens both commercial cultivation and small-scale subsistence farming.
Within the data gathered from the genes of hundreds of bananas, the botanist Julie Sardos has found several wild banana ancestors currently unknown to scientists, whose genes could provide a means of defense against banana crop diseases.
Some commentators have remarked that those variants which could replace what much of the world considers a "typical banana" are so different that most people would not consider them the same fruit, and blame the decline of the banana on monogenetic cultivation driven by short-term commercial motives.
Panama disease
Panama disease is caused by a
Fusarium soil
fungus, which enters the plants through the roots and travels with water into the trunk and leaves, producing
and gums that cut off the flow of water and nutrients, causing the plant to
wilting, and exposing the rest of the plant to lethal amounts of sunlight. Prior to 1960, almost all commercial banana production centered on the Gros Michel cultivar, which was highly susceptible.
Cavendish was chosen as the replacement for Gros Michel because, among resistant cultivars, it produces the highest quality
fruit. It requires more care during shipping,
and its quality compared to Gros Michel is debated.
Fusarium wilt TR4
Fusarium wilt TR4, a reinvigorated strain of Panama disease, was discovered in 1993. This virulent form of Fusarium wilt has destroyed Cavendish plantations in several southeast Asian countries and spread to Australia and India.
As the soil-based fungi can easily be carried on boots, clothing, or tools, the wilt spread to the Americas despite years of preventive efforts.
Without genetic diversity, Cavendish is highly susceptible to TR4, and the disease endangers its commercial production worldwide.
The only known defense to TR4 is genetic resistance.
This is conferred either by RGA2, a gene isolated from a TR4-resistant
diploid banana, or by the
nematode-derived Ced9.
This may be achieved by genetic modification.
Black sigatoka
Black sigatoka is a fungal leaf spot disease first observed in Fiji in 1963 or 1964. It is caused by the
ascomycete Mycosphaerella fijiensis. The disease, also called black leaf streak, has spread to banana plantations throughout the tropics from infected banana leaves used as packing material. It affects all main cultivars of bananas and plantains (including the Cavendish cultivars
[ (Also at )]), impeding
photosynthesis by blackening parts of the leaves, eventually killing the entire leaf. Starved for energy, fruit production falls by 50% or more, and the bananas that do grow
ripen prematurely, making them unsuitable for export. The fungus has shown ever-increasing resistance to treatment; spraying with fungicides may be required as often as 50 times a year. Better strategies, with integrated pest management, are needed.
Banana bunchy top virus
Banana bunchy top virus is a plant virus of the genus
Babuvirus, family
Nanonviridae affecting
Musa spp. (including banana, abaca, plantain and ornamental bananas) and
Ensete spp. in the family
Musaceae.
[National Biological Information Infrastructure & IUCN/SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group. Banana Bunchy Top Virus . Global Invasive Species Database. N.p., July 6, 2005.] Banana bunchy top disease symptoms include dark green streaks of variable length in leaf veins, midribs and petioles. Leaves become short and stunted as the disease progresses, becoming 'bunched' at the apex of the plant. Infected plants may produce no fruit or the fruit bunch may not emerge from the pseudostem.
[Thomas, J.E. (ed). 2015. MusaNet Technical Guidelines for the Safe Movement of Musa Germplasm . 3rd edition. MusaLit, Bioversity International, Rome] The virus is transmitted by the banana aphid
Pentalonia nigronervosa and is widespread in Southeast Asia, Asia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Oceania and parts of Africa. There is no cure, but it can be effectively controlled by the eradication of diseased plants and the use of virus-free planting material.
No resistant cultivars have been found, but varietal differences in susceptibility have been reported. The commercially important Cavendish subgroup is severely affected.
Banana bacterial wilt
Banana bacterial wilt is a bacterial disease caused by
Xanthomonas campestris pv.
musacearum.
First identified on a close relative of bananas,
Ensete ventricosum, in Ethiopia in the 1960s,
The disease was first seen in Uganda in 2001 affecting all banana cultivars. Since then it has been diagnosed in Central and East Africa, including the banana growing regions of Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi, and Uganda.
Conservation of genetic diversity
Given the narrow range of genetic diversity present in bananas and the many threats via
Biotic component (pests and diseases) and abiotic threats (such as
drought) stress, conservation of the full spectrum of banana genetic resources is ongoing.
In 2024, the economist Pascal Liu of the FAO described the impact of
global warming as an "enormous threat" to the world supply of bananas.
Banana germplasm is conserved in many national and regional gene banks, and at the world's largest banana collection, the International Musa Germplasm Transit Centre, managed by Bioversity International and hosted at KU Leuven in Belgium.
Genes from wild banana species are conserved as DNA and as cryopreserved pollen.
Nutrition
A raw banana (not including the peel) is 75% water, 23%
, 1% protein, and contains negligible
fat. A reference amount of supplies 89
, 24% of the
Daily Value of vitamin B
6, and moderate amounts of
vitamin C, manganese, potassium, and
dietary fiber, with no other
in significant content (table).
Although bananas are commonly thought to contain exceptional potassium content,
Uses
Culinary
Fruit
Bananas are a staple
starch for many tropical populations. Depending upon cultivar and ripeness, the flesh can vary in taste from starchy to sweet, and texture from firm to mushy. Both the skin and inner part can be eaten raw or cooked. The primary component of the aroma of fresh bananas is
isoamyl acetate (also known as
banana oil), which, along with several other compounds such as
butyl acetate and
isobutyl acetate, is a significant contributor to banana flavor.
[ "Isoamyl acetate (9.6%) imparts the characteristic aroma typical of fresh bananas (13, 17−20), while butyl acetate (8.1%) and isobutyl acetate (1.4%) are considered to be character impact compounds of banana flavor."]
Plantains are eaten cooked, often as fritters.
File:అరటికాయ మరియు నిమ్మకాయ పులుసు కూర.jpg|Banana curry with lemon, Andhra Pradesh, India
File:Pisang goreng in a basket.jpg| Pisang goreng fried banana in batter, a popular snack in Indonesia
File:YosriPengatPisang.jpg|Banana in sweet gravy, known as pengat pisang in Malaysia
Flowers
Banana flowers (also called "banana hearts" or "banana blossoms") are used as a
vegetable in South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine. The flavor resembles that of
artichoke. As with artichokes, both the fleshy part of the bracts and the heart are edible.
[ See also the link on that page for Banana Flower Salad.]
File:Thanin market banana flowers and leaves.jpg|Banana flowers and leaves on sale in Thailand
File:Bananajf.jpg| Kilawin na pusô ng saging, a Filipino dish of banana flowers
Leaf
Banana leaves are large, flexible, and waterproof. While generally too tough to actually be eaten, they are often used as ecologically friendly disposable food containers or as "plates" in
South Asia and several
countries.
In Indonesian cuisine, banana leaf is employed in cooking methods like
pepes and
botok; banana leaf packages containing food ingredients and spices are cooked in steam or in boiled water, or are grilled on charcoal. Certain types of tamales are wrapped in banana leaves instead of corn husks.
When used so for steaming or grilling, the banana leaves protect the food ingredients from burning and add a subtle sweet flavor.
File:Chicken satay on banana leaf in Java.jpg|Banana leaf as disposable plate for chicken satay in Java
File:Nacatamales in steamer.jpg|Nicaraguan , in banana leaves, ready to be steamed
Trunk
The tender core of the banana plant's trunk is also used in South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine.
Examples include the Burmese dish
mohinga, and the
Filipino cuisine dishes
inubaran and
kadyos, manok, kag ubad.
Kaeng yuak.JPG| Kaeng yuak, a northern Thai curry of the core of the banana plant
Paper and textiles
Banana fiber harvested from the pseudostems and leaves has been used for
in Asia since at least the 13th century. Both fruit-bearing and fibrous banana species have been used.
In the Japanese system Kijōka-bashōfu, leaves and shoots are cut from the plant periodically to ensure softness. Harvested shoots are first boiled in
lye to prepare fibers for
yarn-making. These banana shoots produce fibers of varying degrees of softness, yielding yarns and textiles with differing qualities for specific uses. For example, the outermost fibers of the shoots are the coarsest, and are suitable for
, while the softest innermost fibers are desirable for
kimono and
hakama. This traditional Japanese cloth-making process requires many steps, all performed by hand.
can be made either from the bark of the banana plant, mainly for artistic purposes, or from the fibers of the stem and non-usable fruits. The paper may be hand-made or industrially processed.
File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Het verpakken van manilla-hennep (musa textilis) in balen op onderneming Kali Telepak Besoeki Oost-Java TMnr 10011535.jpg|Packing Manila hemp ( Musa textilis) into bales, Java
File:48-QWSTION-BANANATEX-LOOM-LAUSCHSICHT.jpg|Weaving looms processing Manila hemp fabric
File:QWSTION Flap tote small.jpg|A modern Manila hemp bag
Other uses
The large leaves of bananas are locally used as
.
may have capability to extract heavy metal
contamination from river water, similar to other purification materials.
Waste bananas can be used to feed
livestock.
[ Last updated on March 25, 2016, 10:36] As with all living things, potassium-containing bananas emit
radioactivity at low levels occurring naturally from the potassium-40 (K-40) isotope.
The banana equivalent dose of radiation was developed in 1995 as a simple teaching-tool to educate the public about the natural, small amount of K-40 radiation occurring in everyone and in common foods.
Potential allergic reaction
Individuals with a
latex allergy may experience a reaction to handling or eating bananas.
Cultural roles
Arts
The
Edo period poet Matsuo Bashō is named after the Japanese word 芭蕉 (Bashō) for the
Musa basjoo. The Bashō planted in his garden by a grateful student became a source of inspiration to his poetry, as well as a symbol of his life and home.
The song "Yes! We Have No Bananas" was written by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn and originally released in 1923; for many decades, it was the best-selling sheet music in history. Since then the song has been rerecorded several times and has been particularly popular during banana shortages.
A person slipping on a banana peel has been a staple of physical comedy for generations. An American comedy recording from 1910 features a popular character of the time, "Uncle Josh", claiming to describe his own such incident.
The banana's suggestively phallic shape has been exploited in artworks from Giorgio de Chirico's 1913 painting The Uncertainty of the Poet onwards. In 2019, an exhibition of Natalia LL's video and set of photographs showing a woman "sucking on a banana" at the National Museum in Warsaw was taken down and the museum's director reprimanded.
Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan created a 2019 concept art piece titled Comedian
Religion and folklore
In India, bananas serve a prominent part in many festivals and occasions of
. In
Hindu wedding, particularly
Tamil culture, banana trees are tied in pairs to form an
arch as a blessing to the couple for a long-lasting, useful life.
In Thailand, it is believed that Musa balbisiana of banana plant may be inhabited by a spirit, Nang Tani, a type of ghost related to trees and similar plants that manifests itself as a young woman.
In Ethnic Malays, the ghost known as Pontianak is associated with banana plants ( pokok pisang), and its spirit is said to reside in them during the day.
Racial signifier
In European, British, and Australian sport, throwing a banana at a member of an opposing team has long been used as a form of
racial abuse.
The act, which was commonplace in England in the 1980s, is meant to taunt players of
Black African ancestry by equating them to apes or monkeys.
See also
-
Corporación Bananera Nacional
-
Domesticated plants and animals of Austronesia
-
Orange, another fruit exported and consumed in large quantities
-
United Brands Company v Commission of the European Communities
Bibliography
External links
