Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. To most people, a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. The boom in birds, Peterson concluded, seems to be an antidote for the pressures and artificialities of the modern world. Today's yellow banana, the Cavendish, is increasingly threatened by such a blight, and there's no cure in sight.īanana combines a pop-science journey around the globe, a fascinating tale of an iconic American business enterprise, and a look into the alternately tragic and hilarious banana subculture (one does exist) - ultimately taking us to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world's most beloved fruit. A gripping biological detective story that uncovers the myth, mystery, and endangered fate of the worlds most humble fruit. 3 quotes from Dan Koeppel: Life is getting more complicated, but it seems the more artificially complex man’s affairs become, the more he yearns for the fundamentals, the things of earth. A seedless fruit with a unique reproductive system, every banana is a genetic duplicate of the next and therefore susceptible to the same blights. Rich cultural lore surrounds the fruit: In ancient translations of the Bible, the 'apple' consumed by Eve is actually a banana.īut the biggest mystery about the banana today is whether it will survive.

But for all its ubiquity, the banana is surprisingly mysterious nobody knows how bananas evolved or exactly where they originated. In others parts of the world, bananas are what keep millions of people alive. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson. A gripping biological detective story that uncovers the myth, mystery, and endangered fate of the world’s most humble fr. Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. To most people a banana is a banana: a simple yellow fruit. Read 'Banana The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World' by Dan Koeppel available from Rakuten Kobo.

Banana by dan koeppel