☞ Whoever Wins, Bananas Lose.
What do Goldfingers, Señoritas, Lady Fingers, Rhino Horns and Double Dragon have in common?
Give up?
They’re all types of bananas.
Except Double Dragon. That’s not a banana. That’s a video game. Come on here.
We also would have accepted Plantain, Latundan, and Grand Nain. We would not have accepted Double Dragon II or Double Dragon III. Those are also video games.
I eat a banana every other day, give or take. It keeps my potassium in check, my neurotransmitter synthesis synthesizing, my conjunctivitis in a non-conjunctive state and my breakfast of Cracklin’ Oat Bran slightly less cracklin’. And it keeps me just a lil’ radioactive so that I can better fight crime.
FUN FACT: Due to their high potassium levels, bananas are ever-so-slightly radioactive. Our bodies compensate for this radioactivity within a few hours of digestion however, so don’t expect to turn into Spider-man or the Incredible Hulk after eating one. (That’s what Brazil nuts are for. Those things are like Chernobyl.)
Anyway. I’m not alone in my banana bias. Americans eat more bananas than any other fruit. More than apples and oranges combined, in fact. I like them, Kirk Cameron likes them, we all like them. We make bread out of them, banana chips, banana pudding, banana splits, banana fritters, and, alledgedly, banana wine. I can’t imagine that would be any good, though.
Point is, we love bananas. Which is why I’ve got some bad news for all of you.
Are you all sitting down? You are? Together? Really? Okay that’s kind of weird.
Anyway. How do I put this lightly?
Bananas are fucked.
Okay, that wasn’t very lightly. But it’s true. Bananas are dead fruit walking.
Specifically the Cavendish is screwed, which is the banana breed we currently generically refer to as the “banana.” And when I saw “screwed” I mean we may have a bananaless future on our hands (and in our stomachs).
There go my super powers.
The crux of this coming banapocalypse is that all bananas are clones. Every banana you’ve ever eaten is genetically identical to every other banana you’ve eaten. Weird, right? And statistically speaking, you’ve eaten a lot of bananas. About 26 pounds a year, on average. (Probably a little less than that, though, because I eat a lot of bananas, so I bump the average up a bit.)
Problem is, if you share a gene pool with you and your billions of brothers, if one of you gets sick, you’re all going to get sick. And guess what? One of your brothers is sick. Oh shit.
(Dim the lights, cue dramatic music with accompanying slideshow of dying banana plants.)
“Panama Disease” it’s called. Also known as Tropical Race 4 Fusarium Wilt. Also known as Revenge Of The Granny Smith. It’s a common vascular wilt fungal disease, exhibiting symptoms similar to Verticillium Wilt. The pathogen: Fusarium oxysporum, AKA “Postassium Assassin.” Once infected, Panama Disease causes chlorosis, necrosis, premature leaf drop, browning of the vascular system, tooth loss, stunting, and damping-off. There is no known cure.
Lights.
We once thought Cavendish bananas were immune to Panama Disease. We were wrong.
In the past few years a new strain of Panama sprouted up in in south Asia, killing banana plants by the bushel. Or basket. Bucket? However you count bananas.
Right now the disease is contained, but its only a matter of time before this more virulent strain makes its way to the western world and then its lights out for bananas as we know them.
That’s just a figure of speech. Please turn the lights back on.
I know what you’re thinking, how do we know this is going to happen? How can we be so sure all of our bananas are going to die? Well, what if I told you… they already did?
(Cue super dramatic music.)
A century ago, in the early 1900s Americans were eating “Gros Michel” bananas, not Cavendishes. Gros Michels were by all accounts better bananas. They were tastier, bigger, and heartier. Unfortunately, they had one (literally) fatal flaw: They were susceptible to Panama Disease. (They also had the word “gros” in their name, which wasn’t great from a marketing standpoint.)
It took a few decades for Panama Disease to spread around the world, but by 1960 Gros Michel was essentially extinct, and we were essentially bananaless. Enter the inferior Cavendish that we’ve been eating for the past 50 years. Doesn’t taste as good now, does it? Sorry. I’m a wet banana.
Gross.
Gros, even.
Thanks to the acceleration of everything, it’s not going to take a few decades for this new strain of Panama Disease to make it around the world. It’s going to take a single decade this time. Maybe two. We just need some contaminanted soil on some dude’s boot to cross continents and now even our inferior bananas are screwed. Hell, some banana terrorist could be sprinkling some Tropical Race 4 Fusarium Wilt on Cavendish plantations around the world right now, like a sort of Anti-Johnny Bananaseed.
So what’s the answer? What will we do? How will we get our potassium in a post-banana world? What about our radioactive super powers? How will we regulate our national bran intake? Will we all get pink eye?
Well, per usual, we’re trying to cheat mother nature with science. Jeff Goldblum has taught us nothing. We’ve got dudes tweaking banana genes to be resiliant to Panama Disease. We’ve got dudes trying to breed bananas with other bananas. (Presumably using a mixture of Barry White and banana wine.) We’ve got dudes.
So far it’s not looking good, though. The problem is it takes years between experiments to see if it bears… uh, fruit. Bananas, specificially.
It’s a race against the clock and the very fabric of breakfast hangs in the balance. Will we make it in time? Do we even have a choice?
I mean, our only other option is to start eating our cereal with Lady Fingers. And nobody wants that.
