BananasThere are so many aspects to this strange and wonderful fruit. Even its shape is a

Bananas

There are so many aspects to this strange and wonderful fruit. Even its shape is a bit mysterious, conjuring images of tropical islands and sun-filled days. Did you know that the word" banana" originates from the Arabic and means finger？

The banana is so popular in America today that four million tons of them are imported every year. One banana has less water, fifty percent more food energy, four times the protein, half the fat, twice the carbohydrate, almost three times the phosphorus, five times the Vitamin C and iron and at least twice the other vitamins and minerals as an apple! The average American eats 33 pounds of bananas a year. An excellent source of potassium and carbohydrates, they can be eaten any time of the day because of their digestive properties. Natural sugar provides energy for those sports requiring endurance and low proportions of sodium chloride are a good recommendation for salt free diets. Eat at least one banana a day, they are said to contain everything a human needs.

That is all quite impressive but where did the banana come from in the first place？ Buddhist texts from 600BC mention the banana for the first time in history. Alexander The Great tasted bananas in the Indus Valley in 327BC and in his day they were called "pala". China records the presence of banana plantations as far back as 200AD. In 650AD Islamic conquerors brought bananas back to Palestine and through trade spread them all over Africa. Wild forms of the banana plant come originally from the Indo-Malaysian area and are now cultivated all over the tropical and sub-tropical continents. They were unknown to the New World until 1516 when Spanish missionary, Father Tomas de Berlanger, brought the first plants there.

How do they grow？ The whole matter is extremely confusing. The banana tree itself (even though it is not a tree but a giant plant)is by definition a herb. What is a herb？ It is a flowering plant with a fleshy, rather than woody, stem. Each stem consists of ten to fourteen hands, each carrying from eighteen to twenty bananas. The stem however is a false one, formed by tightly wrapped overlapping leaves, resembling stalks of celery. The plant belongs to the same family as lilies, orchids and palms and the fruit is a berry. By definition, a berry is a simple fruit having a skin surrounding one or more seeds in a fleshy pulp. A banana cut lengthwise will reveal very tiny black seeds within its center. Therefore, a banana is a fruit, herb, berry and plant all at the same time. Maybe that is where the expression" going bananas" meaning" going crazy" comes as people tried to decide what a banana really was!

There are about four hundred different varieties of this fabulous fruit. At this moment there are five different types of bananas common on the market. Red bananas have a green/red peel and pink fruit flesh. They taste the same as yellow bananas. The redder a fruit, the more carotene it contains. Carotene is commonly found in carrots and thought to be very healthy, although too much will turn your skin orange! Fruit-bananas are the normal, yellow bananas of about 15-30 cm whilst apple-bananas are smaller, 8-10 cm, and ripen faster. They are also yellow. The baby-banana(pisang susa) is yellow as well and measures 6-8 cm. It is the sweetest of the banana family. Finally baking-bananas are large, 30 to 40 cm. and arc green, yellow or red-like. They cannot be eaten raw. They fulfill the role of the potato in the tropical countries.

The three most important brands are Chiquita, Bonita and Fyffe. The Chiquita's production sites are located in Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica and Columbia. The Bonita banana hails from Ecuador and is the cheapest of the three, but only because it is never advertised. Fyffe was founded in 1888 and has the distinction of being the oldest fruit brand in the world. These bananas are produced in Belize,

A．Y

B．N

C．NG