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	<title>Dan Koeppel&#039;s Blog &#187; Bananas</title>
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	<description>Bananas, Los Angeles, and Transit Geekery</description>
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		<title>Fresh Air Listeners, Welcome</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1494#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1494#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:23:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asymptotes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Big Parade]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[This is Dan Koeppel&#8217;s blog. For my latest writing about bananas, please check out my recent story in The Scientist. If you&#8217;re looking for a copy of my book, and Amazon is sold out, I sell signed copies direct at retail cost (plus shipping.) Chinese, Thai, and Korean editions also available. Japan is coming soon. I&#8217;m on Twitter here; Facebook here.]]></description>
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		<title>Big Parade 2011 info is online</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1466#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1466#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Apr 2011 23:28:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Asymptotes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Big Parade]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Big Parade 2011]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=1466</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#160; The event is Saturday and Sunday May 21 and 22, 2011, with a prologue on Friday, May 20. To learn what the Big Parade is, how to join it, why you can do it, and where we&#8217;ll go, visit the official Big Parade website. To keep updated, join practice walks, and ask questions, visit the Big Parade Facebook page.]]></description>
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		<title>My story nominated for a James Beard Foundation award</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1444#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1444#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Mar 2011 01:03:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Book News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=1444</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Unexpected and cool. The story is a good read, if I say so myself, especially if you&#8217;re visiting my site for the first time via my appearance this morning on Chicago Public Radio&#8217;s Worldview program this morning. The main feature concerns the state of banana innovation. I dream of supermarkets where many delicious varieties of the fruit are sold. The companion piece describes five alternate varieties that actually could reach our shores. The stories appeared in the May, 2010 issue of Saveur. It was one of eight pieces the magazine published last year that received nominations. I also wrote a book about bananas, which is now in its fourth printing.]]></description>
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		<title>Just for Kids: How Bananas Came to America</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1430#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1430#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 08 Jan 2011 01:53:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana History]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[banana kids]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=1430</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a special post, excerpted and modified from my book, designed for kids, visiting from The Mini Page, a syndicated feature published in over 500 newspapers every week. Lorenzo Dow Baker: Banana Pioneer Bananas were available in the United States immediately following the Civil War. But they were a luxury item, like caviar, consumed more for status than taste. (Plantains, for cooking, had been a staple in the southern parts of the hemisphere since Spanish times.)  Most Americans had never seen, sampled, or even heard of the fruit. What few bananas North Americans ate were sold at a dime apiece—about two dollars today—and came peeled, sliced, and wrapped in foil. They were usually mushy and brown by the time they got to the table. The closest place to the U.S. bananas could be grown, at the time, was Jamaica. The trip from that Caribbean island to the ports of the American northeast could take as long as three weeks aboard the sail-driven schooners of the day. That wasn’t fast enough to keep bananas fresh. But if the winds were just right, a ship could sail faster. Then, a cargo hold full of bananas could fetch a fine price. In 1870, [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Just for Kids: The World&#8217;s Most Important Bananas</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1424#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1424#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 08 Jan 2011 01:42:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Big Parade]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bananas Kids]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=1424</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a special post, excerpted and modified from my book, designed for kids, visiting from The Mini Page, a syndicated feature published in over 500 newspapers every week. There is no place on earth where bananas are more important than Uganda. Uganda grows eleven million tons of the fruit each year. That counts out to more than 500 pounds per person annually &#8212; twenty times more than we Americans peel and eat. In remote villages, where there are few other crops, banana consumption stretches toward the unbelievable: as much as 970 pounds each year for each person. That’s ten bananas per day! In some communities, a banana tree can be found in front of every household. It might have grown there for generations, feeding both infants and grandparents: a century of nutrition in just a few square feet. The Ugandan fruit, known as the “East African Highland Banana,” is also eaten in the circle of nations surrounding Lake Victoria &#8211; the world’s second largest lake, in the mountains on the eastern side of the continent. But bananas are more than just something to dine on. In these nations &#8211; Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Kenya, along with Uganda &#8211; bananas [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Great Banana Reading, Part II</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1411#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1411#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:24:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Costa Rica]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[History]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Neotropica]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stephen Duplantier]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=1411</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Stephen Duplantier’s magazine &#8211; almost entirely devoted to bananas &#8211; is absolutely inspiring. Neotropica, published out of Costa Rica, is now two issues old. It is a feast of banana-related information, covering the fruit’s politics, culture, and economics &#8211; past, present, and future. I can’t say enough about what a detailed, compelling, and well-put together effort this is. You’ll find political perspective, original material, historic documents, and writing from some of the world’s best-known banana scholars. There’s no better way to learn about the history and reasons banana companies have interfered &#8211; and continue to interfere, often brutally &#8211; in the regions where the fruit is grown. Here’s Steven’s story, and why he became interested in bananas and Latin American politics: “While I was a seminarian in a Benedictine monastery in Louisiana, I spent the summers of 1966-67 at the Santuario de Esquipulas in the state of Zacapa, Guatemala. The work of the seminarians was to travel on muleback to remote villages in the mountains and essentially just visit the villagers to remind them that the padres down in the valley at the 16th century shrine were still there. In our group was a guy who learned to pull out [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Great Banana Reading, Part I</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1405#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1405#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:06:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Australia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Disease]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Genetics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Honduras]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[James Dale]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mike Peed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New Yorker]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=1405</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Beyond my book, there&#8217;s lots of new writing about the world&#8217;s most important, threatened, and dangerous fruit.  In this week&#8217;s New Yorker, Mike Peed chronicles Australia&#8217;s disastrous and dimwitted attempts to stop the spread of Panama Disease, the blight that threatens the global commercial banana crop. He also visits with James Dale, a biotechnologist who is attempting to develop a genetically-engineered banana that will resist the blight. I&#8217;ve written about both extensively, here and elsewhere, but Peed&#8217;s account &#8211; especially his reporting from Australia&#8217;s plantations &#8211; is terrific. Finally, he goes to Honduras, and the research center there that&#8217;s attempting to conventionally breed a resistant banana. The center &#8211; formerly owned by Chiquita, and now independent &#8211; is where my entry into the world of the fruit began. One editorial comment: Peed touches ont how long it takes to conventionally breed bananas, and how frustrating that process is. My personal view is that these elements make conventional breeding so flawed that it likely won&#8217;t work. Despite this, as the article notes, both major banana companies &#8211; Chiquita and Dole &#8211; are contracted with the Honduran facility as they race to develop a stronger fruit before the blight reaches their Central [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Early Evidence of Bananas in Eden?</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1370#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1370#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:51:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bananas Art]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bananas Eden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bananas History]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=1370</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In the very first chapter of my book, I make the argument that the apple in the Garden of Eden &#8211; the one imagined by artists and Bible storytellers for centuries &#8211; was, in the original versions of the text, a banana. There are a bunch of reasons for the assertion, but fundamentally, it comes down to a mistranslation of the word &#8220;fruit&#8221; by European artists in the 16th century.  (There&#8217;s more &#8211; I discuss how the Garden legend is, in fact, a metaphor for the development of human agriculture; the banana was a huge part of that development &#8211; maybe the central part. And the original taxonomic names for the banana &#8211; musa sapentium and musa paradisica, which mean, respectively, [banana of] wisdom and paradise  &#8211; also came from the Middle Ages, via Linnaeus, who invted the nomenclature system used in biology today.) Well, there&#8217;s some evidence for the banana&#8217;s presence in pre-Christian Hebrew texts, but I&#8217;ve never seen visual evidence until now.  That comes to me via Patty Sparks, who sent wrote this in an email: &#8220;&#8230;I recently checked out a beautiful coffee-table book from the library: &#8220;The Secret Language of Churches and Cathedrals &#8211; Decoding the Sacred [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Dole loses in court after trying to suppress free speech</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1340#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1340#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:43:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bananas Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bananas Latin America]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=1340</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dole &#8211; which tried to stop Fredrik Gertten&#8217;s documentary, &#8220;Bananas!&#8221;, from being aired in the United States, has now lost a court case brought by the filmmaker. I attended the film&#8217;s premiere last year, and the place was crawling with Dole lawyers, who pompously said that they were the ones trying to defend the First Amendment, even while successfully kitty-whipping the Los Angeles International Film Festival into withdrawing support for the film, which draws attention to the very true plight of Nicaraguan workers poisoned by Dole&#8217;s spraying of a pesticide called Nemagon in the 1970s. Here&#8217;s what the the LA Times wrote about the ruling: &#8220;LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge has ordered Dole Food Co. to pay nearly $200,000 to a Swedish filmmaker who battled the company in a free speech case involving about a documentary about claims that Dole harmed workers at Nicaraguan banana plantations. Dole had sued Fredrik Gertten for showing the documentary &#8220;Bananas&#8221; despite a court ruling that the case on which the film was based had been part of a massive extortion plot against the company. Dole sued for defamation. But Superior Court Judge Ralph W. Dau found in a ruling issued Nov. 17 that the U.S. [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Bananas in the Democratic Republic of Congo</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1334#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1334#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Dec 2010 18:14:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bananas Congo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bananas Gros Michel]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=1334</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I visited DRC &#8211; and an abandoned agricultural research station &#8211; in December, 2009. The story I wrote about it has been in production for a long while, but it is finally slated to appear in National Geographic early next year. A couple of previews are online now. The first is from Netherlands NatGeo, which published an extended account in June, 2010. Though you can&#8217;t get the full text &#8211; and what&#8217;s there is in Dutch &#8211; there&#8217;s a great photo gallery here. And Bioversity, the international banana research and conservation umbrella organization, and organizer of the expedition, featured highlights from the trip in a recent newsletter. That&#8217;s in English, and you can see it here. The trip itself was incredible, full of suspense, surprise, and, of course, bananas. I&#8217;ll post more info when the piece appears.]]></description>
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