Are Bananas Going Extinct?

what do you mean, like, what was so amazing about it? Well, first of all, the attendance was staggering, Like ten million people showed up and that was one fifth of the US population at the time. Wow, I had no idea. Yeah, And and there were tons of incredible things on display.

So like the arm and torch for the future Statue of Liberty was there, it was just out sitting on a long The first automatic dishwasher was there on display, along with like sewing machines and typewriters, a mechanical pencil for people to gak at. There was also this new fangled thing called hinz ketchup. You may have heard of it. Yeah,

people could testify dunking pieces of sausage in it. But the two things that got the most type the telephone, as demonstrated by Alexander Graham Bell, which people were in total of. I mean, this is a lot of amazing stuff in one place, all right. And so so what was the other thing? The banana? Of course, the banana. Yeah, so according to this amazing book Banana by Dan Copple, the fruit was unveiled as this healthy and cheap alternative

to the apple. Before the bananas were the status symbol, almost like caviare, but all of a sudden they were being marketed to everyone. Actually, let let me read you a quote from one of the admirers there. To my young and impressionable mind, this was the most romantic of all the innumerable things I had seen that any of the vast buildings. It was the tangible, living and expressive symbol of the far distant and mysterious tropics. And to be clear, we're talking about a banana here, right. So

that that was from Frederick Upham Adams. He was the inventor who would go on to streamline the locomotive, and of all those incredible inventions, it was the banana that captivated him and also the rest of America. But why are banana's cheap when they come from so far away? And how did fruit get so popular? And is the banana actually going extinct? That's what today's episode is all about. Why don't we dive in? Yea? Hey there, podcast listeners,

Welcome to Parttime Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend man guest ticket, and sitting behind the soundproof glass boarding a banana rama sweatshirt is our pal and producer Tristan McNeil. My sweatshirt, Tristan, So, I know you've been wanting to talk about the banana and whether it's actually going extinct, you know, for a while now. But before we get into that, why don't we tackle a little outstanding business from our coal a

Wars episode from last week. I guess it was right all right? Well, first off, we we wanted to have the Soda Jerks on for a quiz, but unfortunately it didn't work out because of timing. So we want to let you know about these guys. The Soda Jerks have a wonderful soda review site and they you know, taste and review all sorts of sodas from Crazy Delicious kinds, the one that tastes like ranch dressing. Yeah, that that

ranch soda review is so great. But when we realized we couldn't have them on, they told us, make sure you talk about Crystal Pepsi and how TAB tried to sabotage it. Actually hadn't heard the story before they mentioned it, but now we absolutely have to share it. Definitely. So when Crystal Pepsi came out, it was obviously making this huge splash, and Coke wanted to take the wind out of Pepsi's sales, but they didn't want to release a clear cooke because they thought that could be damaging for

their coke brand. Yeah, that's right. So instead they did something super devious. Coke took the brand from their stable they knew wasn't popular, which was TAB, and they released a clear version to compete with Pepsi. It. Did you even remember clear TAB? I can't say that I didn't. And they didn't put that much effort to it, and I'm not sure how much they worked on the formula, but they didn't even put the product in a clear

bottle to show that it was clear. They just put Tab clear on the can, and like, customers assumed that it was clear, right, And as the soda jerks pointed out, this was totally genius, like evil genius. Yeah, and you know, and because Tab was a diet drink, people just assumed Crystal Pepsi was diet too, and it turned off a large percentage of the market. And years later, co insiders admitted that the effort was to kama kaze the brand. I mean that's their wording. They said, that's what the

plan was all along. And basically they knew their Crystal Tab would fail, but they hoped it would take down Crystal Pepsi with it, and it did. Yeah, it's a funny bit of history from the Cola Wars that we totally would have missed. And you can find the soda jerks that the soda jerks dot net. And for those of you who wrote in with brands we should have mentioned, from Iron Brew to Doc Brown Cellarray, we promised we'll give them a taste and sneak those into future soda

episodes down the line. Alright, so I guess we gotta get back to banana here. So Mango. I know this is on air, but I've got to say, I was watching you in the office this week and I saw you pick up a banana, look around, and then you quickly flipped it around and peeled it. But you weirdly look so embarrassed doing it. It was kind of like you were doing something sneaky that you weren't supposed to be doing. I know, because eating banana backwards feels so wrong.

So for those of you don't know, and I'm guessing that's most of you, a few years ago I changed the way I peeled my bananas. Before I'd always just used the stem part as the pool tab, kind of a way everyone's trained. It's actually kind of a clunky way to do it because it never actually pulls easily. But then I saw this life act that if you just turned the banana upside down, not only does that stem become a convenient banana handle, but it's actually way

easier to peel. Plus you don't get any of those annoying strands stuck to your banana, Like how much thought you'd put into this, but that actually that's how monkeys eat them, right, Yeah, So so for me that was the kicker, right, Like, when I read that, I was like humans, You idiots, Why don't you just eat the way monkeys have been doing it forever? Monkeys are so smart, smart type like monkeys, we should I know everything. But but then this week I read this article on Business

Insider where Catherine Milton, who studies primate diets, went off. Here, I'm going to read you this quote. I'm not sure where the myth that monkeys eat bananas started. I personally suspect curious George, but it's time for it to stop. Wild monkeys don't eat them exclamation point. The whole wild monkey banana connection is a total fabrication. She sounds pretty ticked off. So but let me get this right. So

monkeys don't eat bananas. No, they do eat bananas. Her point was just that monkeys only started eating bananas after humans cultivated them, and that bananas are actually too sugary for monkeys and can give them toothaches and diabetes. But when she was pressed on the topic, she gave my favorite quote in the article. Quote, of course monkeys and apes aren't stupid, they're relish eating bananas once they're exposed

to them. All right, So, just to recap on this, wild monkeys don't eat bananas, but civilized monkeys who have been exposed to the finer things do eat bananas, but they shouldn't eat them because of diabetes. Yeah, bingo, Okay, I'm glad we've settled that. All right. So, I know we've got a lot to say about the banana. And obviously the big question we're asking today is our bananas going extinct. But what's kind of strange is that if that happens, this will actually be the second time a

top banana has gone extinct. Yeah, so, so you're right. Basically the banana that everyone fell in love with from the eighteen seventies until the mid nineteen hundreds, and that's the one that started the banana craze. It was called the Gross Michelle or for those of you who want English translation from the French, Big Mike. I never know that fairly Big Mike was not to be the perfect banana, and the flavor was completely different from what we know

speaking of. I actually went to this pop up magazine show a while ago. Have you have you gone? I like how we've been in for like fifteen seconds and you're already on a tanta here. But no, I actually have not been to one but I know you've said

they're they're pretty great. Yeah you should go. So for those of you don't know, Pop Up Magazine tours the country performing a live magazine curating like twelve or thirteen different writers to speak in a night, and they have this live orchestra that actually scores the stories, and sometimes they include shadow puppets or video or these scents. Three experiences,

I honestly tell everyone about them. Yeah, but when I was at one in New York, they had a chef who handed out two types of marshmallows to the crowd, and as she talked about cinnamon in wartime, she had his taste one marshmallow and then the other, and it was crazy. So the first one was like a cinnamon sprig flavor you all know it was. It was pretty tasty. And then the second was the cinnamon that used to be available from Vietnam in the nineteen fifties but was

discontinued in the US after the war started. It had this really like sweet and juicy and big red flavor. It was almost like two cartoonish to seem like a natural flavor, and you kind of realized cinnamon gum was meant to resemble the Saigon version of cinnamon, not the milder one we've grown accustomed to. And that's kind of the same with the banana. Like the gross Michelle was

the sweeter, more custody, and really more delicious banana. It was actually so delicious that when there was a blight in the nineteen fifties and the crops started going extinct, banana companies assumed people would revolt if they switched banana styles on them, which is exactly what they eventually had

to do. Well, And to be clear, Big Mike was just one of over I don't know, like a thousand banana species in the world, right, but but a number of them have seeds so hard they'd actually like break your teeth if you've been to them. So some are more like plantains and less sweet. Some are totally inedible. But the gross Michelle banana was considered like the perfect banana. It didn't often have seeds, it didn't bruise easily, so you could just pile them on a boat without boxes.

Its flavor was never off like the bananas you get in the stores today. It grew year round, and it was hardy and resistant to most things. At least until this mysterious Panama disease started wiping it out in something like a decade. It basically took out all the gross

Michelles with it, all right. And so just just to tie this up here, that the Caven Dish, which was the inferior banana both in taste and how it bruised, that was picked as the replacement, partially because it looked like the Big Mike, but also because it was resistant to this Panama disease. Is that right? Well? You know, I was looking up styles of bananas because reading about the Big Mike made me curious what other flavors you can get from a banana. And here are a few

of the ones I really want to try. You know, I love lists of like strange fruit. So what's in your top three? All right, I'm just gonna read off my list here. So so first, the one that I really want to try is called the apple banana. It's actually so sweet. It sometimes called the candy apple banana. It's slightly pinkish and more juicy than a regular banana, and also sweet, and it doesn't really ever brown. And

you can find this in Hawaii. It's so funny, like you say all these words like juicy and candy apple, and I actually can't imagine how good it is. But what I know is I really want to try one. I know, So what else you got? All right, there's something called the ice cream banana. Speaking ones that we should try. It almost sounds like I'm just making these up. This one is real. Also called the blue java banana.

It's this strong plant that's hardy enough to survive monsoons, but it's also got a vanilla flavor to it, and the flesh is kind of pudding like, which I can't decide if that sounds delicious or gross, but but in fact, a lot of people actually eat this with a spoon. Yes, so I think I've seen monkeys eat those with a spoon, but not wild monkeys, definitely not wild monkeys. Well, a

lot of people call it the tastiest banana. And then there's also the red banana, which is short and sticky and also really sweet, and I don't know, you get lost in all these banana descriptions that I almost want a banana kind of sort of walk me through each

of these things. But the fact that the bananas that come to the States are cavendish makes you crave these so much more so I definitely want to talk more about the Cavendish and I feel like the way it's talked about in these books, it's almost like this mediocre, flavorless garbage fruit. But even mediocre bananas are good well, and Americans certainly do love them. I was reading this New York Times article on the Secret Life of the

City Banana. So there are twenty million bananas distributed around New York City every week, every single week. That's eighty million a month and seven twenty million bananas a year. Like I did the map on that so quick, and that's just in New York City. That's crazy. But as much of America loves bananas, apparently India loves them even more so. According to a two thousand fifteen article in The Hindu, the country producest of the world's bananas, but

basically exports none of it. Like their entire economies in Central and South America built exclusively on banana exports, and India turns down all of that money. They only send out one percent of their bananas and they hoard the rest for themselves. And i'mlike, in the US, you can find tons of varieties of bananas there, but that isn't the tangent I wanted to take you on. I wanted to tell you about the weirdest fact I learned this week, and that's that the forbidden fruit in the Bible might

actually be a banana. I like how you have a tangent from a hand to it. All right, this does sound interesting, though, so so what do you mean by this? So couple is out this amazing argument that the banana might actually be what he took a bite out of, and he's got all sorts of evidence for it. So you start with the fact that the banana is, well, you know, this pretty suggestive looking fruit, and you can see what it might be thought of as racy or forbidden.

And as you and I have both read before, the Bible never actually like specifically mentions what the fruit is, but it is described in the Koran, and their Copple says it's talked about as a tree whose quote fruits piled one above another in long extended shade, whose season is not limited, and whose supply will not be cut off. And you know, as any New Englander will tell you,

there's a very clear apple season. But that description as Copple points out, really describes the bunches upon bunches of bananas growing multigenerationally and in continuous rings on the plant, and then he backs this up with talk of climate.

So basically, when scientists looked at the description for the Garden of Eden and this idea of a place that's bound by four rivers, they were already thinking that two of the rivers with the tigers and the euphrates, but then they found evidence of two rivers that used to exist near them, and that land wasn't aspitable to apples. It's prime banana growing territory. That's pretty wild. And so

are there other people who also believe this? Yeah, apparently there were a number of scholars whople leave this, including car Linnas you know he's that taxonomist. In fact, the scientific name he gave bananas was Musa paradisiaca, or wise fruit of paradise. And uh. Copple has one other bit of evidence. Apparently bananas used to be mistaken for figs before they were well known, maybe because they had seeds

and we're stickier. But but Alexander the Great, when he tried to banana and in India, reportedly thought it was a fig and in Hebrew translations, Copple points out that the fruits, often translated as the fig of eve plus fig leaves make like a lot more sense as something that they could use to cover off their body when you realize they're banana leaves, something people actually used to use to cover up their bodies in history, right right, Well,

you know the description of the bananas foal, it comes up a lot and I actually read that in Victorian times bananas were cut up and sold and foil and that was because the idea of buying or eating a banana hole would offend these you know, delicate Victorian sensibilities, which is kind of funny to read about. But you know what's so funny about this whole forbidden root thing is that the banana is basically a sexless plant. I mean, bananas are all clones of one another, grown from clippings

and not seeds. It's how all cavendish tastes so uniform. But also while those big mics died off and they all have the exact same vulnerability. But beyond that, for all this talk about the male anatomy the fruit of the banana that we eat, it's actually the female part of the bananas anatomy. That's crazy, And I mean, the banana is all contradictions how so, so I was actually thinking about this earlier. But like almost everything good you

say about it has an opposite. So, like the plant has devastated countries and economies, you think about banana republics or whatever, but it's also kept nations in Africa fed and out of wars. It's considered the perfect package fruit because it's portable and transports so well without getting the fruit itself dirty. But the peels were also easy to litter, and once up our time, they were considered the bane

of society. It's sold for super cheap in the US, and it's almost considered this simple fruit of the people. But to get it here, tons of people are exploited it. And and also all these fancy technologies from the cold chain to railroads to radio systems, they all had to be innovated. Yeah, and there's a ton to cover there, and and I definitely want to start by how the

banana got to the US. But quickly before we do, why don't we take a break, So mango, it's pretty rare that we have a guest that aligns so perfectly with the topic. But today we've got Ken Banister TV on the program. And now now Ken's the founder of the International Banana Club. Did you ever think you'd be speaking with the founder of the International Banana Club? And and in case you were wondering, the TV after his name stands for top Banana of course, Ken Banister. Welcome

to Part Time Genius. Thank you my pleasure. Hey, so, Ken, um, would you tell us a little about the International Banana Club and why do you decide to celebrate the banana in the first place. Well, this is a fun bunch. I started back in nineteen seventy two, and uh, it all came about as my secretarious husband, who was a Steve Adore unloading bananas in Long Beach, California, gave me

a role of ten thousand banana stickers. So, as the president of a manufacturing firm making Reflectus all products, I took that roll of stickers to a trade show in Atlanta, Georgia, and started handing out banana stickers to people to affix to their I D badges, And I assured them that everybody would smile if they saw that banana sticker. One two, they would get a discount tree, it would improve their attitude, and it would remind them to stay in good health

and consume one finger or one banana every morning. So what I did to get people excited motivated about the banana turned into a club. I had a card made and decided that I would offer b M's Banana merits and to degrees in Banana Street for sending things to do with banana is in good taste. Nothing with cruder lestibous would be accepted. So that's how the collection got started. This was clear back in nineteen seventy two. What kind of benefits do you get as a member of the club.

And is it true that Ronald Reagan was a member? Well, yes he was. I I inducted him. His title was PB President Banana. Everybody gets the title of their choice. I told him he should probably select the PB, and he said, you know that's fine. Man. We've had lots of of celebrities playing this bunch over the years because of the purpose, which is to keep people smiling, their spirits up and give him a chance to get some recognition.

That's pretty terrific. Now, what's the best response you've gotten from presenting your membership card to someone to get a discount. Well, the best response and for me, has been getting out of about six different speeding tickets by the California Highway Patrol. I'm not kidney. We get upgrades and hotels by simply showing the membership card and saying, well we we usually

get an upgrade at no charge. But I held it up in the window as the police officer walked up and said driver's license and insurance proof, and I said, oh, officer, with a smile on my face, very enthusiastically, no tickets please. It's been Anta Club. I've had several dozen members report success in getting discounts at restaurants, special favors at hotels, and you name it. If you ask, you know, if you're not afraid to ask, you'll you'll get something if

you're pleasant about it. I love how all of these benefits have nothing to do with like getting more bananas. It's just that these are even better than that though. It's pretty great. Now. You you were on the you were on the Tonight Show a few years back, and on the show you were showing some alternate uses for bananas. So can you tell us a little bit about that? Yes, every morning, I have one finger one banana, that's the

term for one banana. And uh. Then I take the peel and I rub it across my teeth and it will if you know to do this on a regular basis, it will help whiten your teeth. Then uh, if I have any kind of a bite from an insect, I will rub the inside of the peel on that bite. It also serves as believe it or not, a treatment for your hair, your shoes. You can shine your shoes with the inside of the peel. And I take I take those banana peels in the morning and I plant

those peels at the roots of the rose bushes. What's that do? Well, that's it serves. It's like fertilizer. You can't waste anything these days, you know. And you know they all come in the shape of a smile, those bright yellow, elongated edible fingers. They they're just I have I've been eaten one hand a week for over well. Gosh, I'm seventy eight years old, so I think I started

eating bananas when I was about five or six. But isn't it funny that that banana role of banana stick has got us started and we've got an international club with over fifty five thousand card carrying members around the world's great and I must answer a hundred or more emails every day trying to keep people's spirits up, especially when things go wrong like this morning, and we have to keep smiling. We have to keep our spirits up, we have to be positive, and we have to support

the team. And that's what the Banana Club is all about. So I did want to talk to us for a second about the International Banana Museum. It's actually in the Guinness Book of World Records for most items devoted to anyone fruit. And when I was online, I saw some really funny things. I saw this portrait of of a bride who was holding a bouquet of bananas. I saw the banana putter that that you've handed out to various celebrities like Bob Hope and stuff over the years. But

what is your favorite thing in the International Banana Museum. Well, it was, and still is and will always be the petrified banana that a girl when I was giving a lecture back in Wisconsin raised her hands and ken bananas. I've got something for you. I've got a petrified banana that I found in my closet. It has been in her closet, I guess a year or so. And she I said, well, if you send that to me, I'll give you a hundred banana merrits and a degree and

Dana Anistry a master's degree. And she did. And I had it on the wall of the museum for almost twenty five years. And it's in the shape of a smile. But it's certainly an old Gummer smile, dark dark brown and hard as a rock and mounted on in a frame. It's really something to see what people send. And of course if somebody sends something that's off color, I send it right back with de merits. We'll have to we'll

have to come check out the museum sometime. But for all of our listeners, you can visit or join the International Banana Club online at International Banana Club dot com. But Ken Banister, Top Banana, thank you so much for joining us on Part Time Genius. You bet you my pleasure. Keep smiling. Welcome back to Part Time Genius, and we're talking bananas and specifically how the bananas started migrating up to America. So about five or six years before they

made their glorious debut in Philadelphia. This sea captain named Lorenzo dow Baker. He bought about a hundred sixty bunches of bananas back with him, almost on a lark, like he'd gone to South America ferrying gold miners down there. But when his when his boats started leaking, he realized he needed to make a pit stop, so he pulled into Jamaica where he fixed his boat, and for some reason he loaded it up with bananas, and if the wind hadn't been at his back, the fruit might have

gone bad on the journey. But he made it back to New England in a quick eleven days, and he sold the fruit for two dollars a bunch, netting him about sixty dollars in today's money, and within a year he was the biggest exporter of bananas from the Caribbean. He even bought land in Jamaica where he started the world's first commercial banana company. Right, but you know, I remember reading that Baker was only so good at his job.

I mean, bananas were good business, and there are accounts of his workers lighting cigars with five dollar bills and getting them into all sorts of trouble in the Jamaican Nights, but Baker was a seafair through and through, and along the way he teamed up with His most enthusiastic buyer was this gentleman named Andrew Preston, who had risen up the ranks from a janitor at a Boston grocery store, and when he first saw the bananas at the port,

he immediately scooped them up to wholesale, and before long the two had taken on investors and started Boston Fruit, which three or four names later would be called Chakda. But Andrew was kind of a genius, right, I mean, he was definitely clever and very ambitious, and he wasn't taking any chances with his produce. Entire boatloads of the fruit could show up at the harbor rotting if winds were rough or if the trip, you know, took a

few days too long. So he really invented the cold chain, which you know we talked about in our Inventions episode a few weeks ago. But this was before air conditioning. So Preston cooled as bananas the old fashion way with giant blocks of ice, and he also ensured that bananas kept cool along the way in storerooms and refrigerated box

cars every step of the process. As Copple puts it, ice became so essential to banana profitability that at least one banana merchant bought up every ice factory along the Gulf coast. Has reduced no middleman cooling costs, made his company the second biggest success story in the banana industry. That company was called Standard Fruit or what you might know now as Dull, and you can start to see why big Banana is referred to as al palpo or

or the octopus. They started getting their tentacles into other businesses and owning the entire supply chain. One other small thing I read about Preston that I really liked, though, was that he painted his fleet all white to reflect the sun. I just thought it was so smart because you read about it now as this technique for keeping your house cool, but it's funny that it's been going

on since the nineteen hundreds. And he also marketed the boats as cruise ships, where tourists could tag along for a fee on the ships to Jamaica, and if they were feeling too hot at any moment, they could open a vent and let the chilled banana air cool them. Down. Let's let's take a step back for a moment. It's actually an insane thing Preston and others were doing when you think about it, I mean they were essentially buying the super perishable item, transporting it thousands of miles, and

selling it as cheap as possible. It doesn't seem like that could work. And Preston wanted to make the banana more popular than the apple, which sounds outrageous because the apple is clearly the most American of fruits. But he actually managed to do this. But the only way the economics of something like that can work is if you work on a really large scale. In by nineteen eleven, one of the boats they were using, the six a Olah, was big enough to carry five hundred railroad cars full

of banana. That's not the boat was half the size of the Titanic, and it was only one small part of Boston Fruits Great White Fleet. Actually, it's funny to see how much has changed and how much hasn't in

the banana industry. So in that time spiece you were mentioning earlier, there's this super cute part where all these green bananas come to New Jersey and make a pit stop to ripen and the way it's described, it's almost like they're hanging out in tanning beds, just relaxing for three or four days before they have to complete their journey, and they're just focused on getting their glow on on.

On one hand, the banana industry is just impressive. I mean, they came up with the tropical radio system so that boats were alerting the laborers of the exact moment their boats were arriving, so that fresh green bananas can meet them at the docks and get loaded up at the perfect moment possible. And everything was just syncd up so exactly like this is the early nineteen hundreds. And they

were also incredible marketers. They put coupons and cereal boxes for free bananas that were somehow paid for by the serial company to make the meals healthier. But they invested in infrastructure to like railroads. Railroads were built across South and Central America purely for the protection and distribution of bananas and really not at all to help the people of those countries. But the model that banana companies established was ingenious, yeah, but also evil. I mean it's essentially

the model for banana republics. So the banana company would come in offer to build a railroad with government's help. Then when government funding dried up, they'd offer to build the rest for free if they got a sweetheart deal of some sort, you know, the low taxes, free land, little oversight. And once they had their hooks in and needed the governments to bend on their whims, they'd install a new dictator. By the way, did you know, oh,

Henry actually came up with the phrase banana republic. He wrote it in this short story while he was fleeing the law in Honduras, and that's amazing. So uh. But by the way, I know, I told you I didn't really want to talk too much about banana republics because they are interesting and actually deserve their own show. But I did want to talk a little bit about Jacobo R. Benz, who was elected freely in Guatemala in and I wanted to talk about it because his story is just the

most nakedly transparent of these stories. So for context, At the time, the big banana companies were hoarding land, and they secretly knew that this banana blight was coming in a big way and that they needed as much land to turn out as many viable bananas as possible, and as the blight came, their plan was simply to expand

into new territories. But our bends hated the fact that the banana companies owned all this land, I mean, supposedly seventy of the nation's arable land, and they weren't using any of it all right, So so he just tried to take it back kind of. I mean, he was also negotiating for workers rights, which is what Boston Fruit was now called conceded too. But uh, but he also wanted this unused land for peasants, and he was willing

to pay for it. He told United Fruit he gave them six dred thousand dollars, and when they laughed and asked where he got that sum from which they valued, uh, they valued the land closer to sixteen million dollars, he responded that he'd taken that estimate directly from the declared value they were paying on their taxes, like United Fruit had for year has been cheating on their taxes, and our bends in the government just you know, accepted those numbers at face value. But when our Ben's tried to

take their land, United Fruits basically ruined him. The next terms and United Fruits negotiations were hand delivered by the U. S. State Department. I mean, this is a business dealing. Think about how crazy that is. And the company also funded journalistic research on Guatemala that showed our Ben's was a Communist, which he wasn't, but they circulated the report to eight hundred lawmakers and staffers in d C. And in the

city plagued with rabid McCarthyism at the time. They spent a year convincing Congress our Ben's was the Soviet dupe. And they also circulated these horrible photos of our Ben's atrocities of corpses thrown into mass graves, which were actually photos of earthquake victims, but presented like there were casualties of our Ben's as rule. And the fingerprints on this are pretty damning. I mean, the U. S. Secretary of State, John Foster Dallas, was a partner and United Fruits law firm,

and Dallas's brother was head of the CIA. The money and interest they were all super entangled. And once the congressional opinion was swayed and the banana companies had made their case, this is about ninety three. That's when Eisenhower authorized the CIA to get rid of our bends. And when our bands finally resigned, he was humiliated in front of the press. I mean he was stripped down to

his underwear before being escorted onto a plane. And for the rest of this life, this man, who like tried to do good for his country was the stateless, depressed shell of a man who finally committed suicide. And also, we could get cheaper bananas. And that's just one horrifying story of El Palpo. There are dozens of them as it ravaged through various countries in Central America. Yeah, I mean,

you're you're right, this is definitely depressing. I know. Um, so I was thinking we should lighten the mood with some banana humor. So I know you did a little digging on why slipping on banana peels became such a comedy trope, Like you set the stage talking about our bends and they're like, tell some banana, all right, well let me all this up here. But but looking at this, so before it was a visual gag, the banana peel was was kind of a hazard. I mean, people just

littered them everywhere in Virginia Scott Jenkins incredible book. It was called Bananas An American History. She talks about how kids at Sunday School were warned that a stray peel could lead to an innocent person getting injured, and how that injury could leave them in the poorhouse for life. The boy Scouts were told picking up a stray peel

was a good act for the day. One scam artist, according to The New York Times, was arrested after she claimed she'd fallen seventeen different times on various banana peels, all in a span of like four years or something. But as the streets became cleaner, it found its way to vaudeville, and according to the a Vy Clubs, Sliding Billy Watson was the original. And now don't confuse sliding Billy Watson with Billy Beef trust Watson, who was a competing comedian at the time. So I also like what

you were talking about, Charlie Chaplin. Oh yeah, the the gag was used by everyone, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, all the silent film stars. But there's this conversation where a film director asked, years later, how do you make the banana gag feel fresh, and he asked, Chaplin, do you show the banana first and then the lady or close up on the lady and then the banana and then

have the slip, and Chaplain immediately said neither. You show the lady approach, then the banana peel, then the two together. Then you show the woman gingerly stepping over the peel and disappearing down a manhole. I know the company's doubted whether they could switch out the big mike and still have people buying bananas, but they pulled off an incredible transition. Yeah, that's true. We eat more bananas now than we ever did in the Gross Michelle days. But part of it

is just that banana companies are excellent marketers. I mean, any group that could so underhandedly like pull off those coups us also have an incredible handle on traditional marketing and with things like you know, the Miss Jakeda campaigns, or how they got doctors to endorse bananas as a great baby food or whatever. I mean, they quietly up the demand. It's true, but I think we should get back to the original question, which was what's the state

of the Cavendish today and is it going extinct? Yeah? So, The truth is banana companies are worried. So while the Cavendish was resistant to the Panama disease that took out the Gross Michelle, that disease has other variations and Cavendish isn't holding up well against those. There's also this airborne virus called black cigatoca that requires a tons of pesticides and chemicals sprayed on the bananas. It really isn't good

for the workers health. And there's really no such thing as an organic banana on the market today, but there is some hope. There are these amazing labs in Belgium and other places where they've been stockpiling cuttings and trying to graft together a stronger banana, and there's some ideas. Does this apple banana called goldfinger that doesn't brown at all,

but it also isn't as sweet. It's this banana that sort of meets a lot of needs and it's hardy, but it's hard to see it as this pure replacement for the Caven Dish. Scientists have also decoded the banana's genome, which helps, but no one's confident that the Cavendish can be saved, and at the same time, no one's slowing down on eating bananas either. There's there's also this much sweeter banana that comes out of the Philippines that some

scientists are hopeful about. It's way more fragile. But if the banana industry could switch from just piling gross michelles on boats to boxing bananas to transport the caven dish, maybe they can adapt to this Philippine and banana. It's it's a big question mark though, And and I want to end this on a happy note. So what's something

you can tell me about the banana that's fun? Well? Um, you know, for one, there's this great passage in Dan Copple's book about how the bananas used in Uganda, and he talks about how it's used this currency, I mean, sometimes by farmers to pay back loans, and how there are songs sung about bananas, and and not in a kitchy way, but almost this epic history pull him kind

of way. He mentions this Red Cross report that documented that if faminine war are connected, the fact that bananas are so plentiful in Uganda have helped the country avoid both. But here's the part that I really love, and it's it's how much the banana is part of the culture. Let me just read this passage from it says, um, there's a special breed of banana that's consumed when twins are born. Another type marks the passing of a relative.

Families are guaranteed prosperity if the mother buries her after birth under a banana tree. There's a banana that, when eaton, helps return a straying spouse. One breed represents the lion and is said to improve male potency. And at the center of it all is matoki, the word that's used interchangeably for both food and banana. So for Uganda's nothing says welcome home more than this comfort food served on

a banana leaf saucer. I love that. But you know what else I love the part time genius fact off? Is it already time? All right? Well, let's do it, m M So do you know that bananas will glow bright blue under a black light? They light up like fosse breasts and jellyfish, I mean, except their bananas. But the weird part is green bananas don't glow, only the

yellow ones do. So I know you said Indians love their bananas, but per person, Uganda has them beat the country grows eleven million tons of fruit, which bears out to five hundred pounds per person annually. I mean this is according to Dan Copple's research, and he says that in remote villages where there's little else they eat, it can be up to nine hundred and seventy pounds per person. That's insane. So here's a quick one. Did you know that the strands in the banana are called the flow,

him or flam. I'm clearly not good at pronouncing things. Now, you're really not all right. Here's something fun for people who love comics. The first Miss Chiquita was drawn by Dick Brown, who also created Hagar the Horrible cartoon, and when the character was revamped, it was done by Oscar Grilloh, who drew the pink panther. Here's a gross one. In uh in Bombay, a first time thiefs stole a gold chain and as he was chased and cornered by police, he swallowed it and to get it out of the system,

they force fed him forty eight bananas. God, I'm not sure why they knew forty eight was the right number, but apparently it worked. It is my favorite number, but I don't think I'm gonna eat that many bananas. But all right, this is kind of amazing. And it comes from Pittsburgh, which is also the supposed home of the

banana split. But you know how ethlene is used to ripe in bananas, right, Well, it's also combustible, and according to The New York Times, a mishap with the gas caused the Pittsburgh Banana Company building to explode and rain bananas down on the city. Oh man, So I don't love explosions, but I do love that you said Pittsburgh Banana Company building. And I also love the idea of just like plucking bananas from the heavens. So I'm gonna

give it to you. But before we go, I I just want to give a special thanks to Nolan Brown, who helped with the research this week. Yeah, and we should also give a shout out to Dan Copple's book Banana, The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. And and before we go, what episodes. We've got a couple of great episodes coming up at the end of this week. We've got one that we've been working on on super Fans, right, Yeah, I'm hoping we can cover a lot about the faneloes.

Those are very Mantel fans, yeah, as well as Harry Potter big football fans. All kinds of fun stuff there. And then we've got another very different one coming up next week on how big is the U. S Military and how is the money spent there? So that should be really interesting to be awesome as well. But we love hearing from so many of you, don't forget. You can reach out to us part Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com or on our seven fact hotline

one eight four four pt Genius. We've heard from so many of you telling your friends about the show. Please keep doing that and if you get a chance, feel free to write us review on Apple Podcast. But thanks so much for listening. Yea, thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil

does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gave Louesier is our lead researcher with support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams, and even Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave

a good review for us. We do. We forget Jason Jason, who