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	<title>Dan Koeppel&#039;s Blog &#187; Banana News</title>
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	<description>Bananas, Los Angeles, and Transit Geekery</description>
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		<title>Wasteful &#8211; but innovative &#8211; banana packaging</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/906#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/906#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:30:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=906</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The reason we have only one kind of banana &#8211; out of the 1,000+ found worldwide &#8211; is partly an issue of transportation: every banana type ripens differently and has widely varying levels of fragility. In the 1950s, when the &#8220;original&#8221; commercial banana, the Gros Michel, was going functionally extinct, Dole came up with the idea of bagging and boxing a potential replacement fruit &#8211; the Cavendish &#8211; in order to allow it to survive the long trip from the tropics to our stores. The plan worked, and the banana industry was saved. Today, as disease ravages the global Cavendish crop, packing and shipping technologies are once again becoming key to replacing the commercial fruit. At the same time, bananas compete more and more with candy and other junk food at convenience stores, where branding and presentation beyond an oval sticker might be a plus (at least in terms of marketing.) Del Monte and 7-Eleven seem to believe just that and have begun, at about 30 stores near the convenience store giant&#8217;s Dallas headquarters, a small retail test of bagged and branded bananas. The packaging is designed to extend the shelf-life of the fruit from two to five days. (I&#8217;m [...]]]></description>
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		<title>British Supermarket &quot;Banana Hammocks&quot;</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/4#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/4#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:31:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/british-supermarket-banana-hammocks/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[New banana shelving at British markets. Photo: Guardian. Tesco, the British supermarket chain, is unveiling what is the first real change in the way bananas are sold and displayed in stores since the variety of fruit we eat today &#8211; called Cavendish &#8211; arrived in the 1960s to replace its disease-destroyed predecessor. (Our Cavendish is a fragile, and had to be bagged and boxed; the older fruit, Gros Michel, was tough, and was simply sent to stores in giant bunches.) Tesco&#8217;s &#8220;hammocks,&#8221; pictured above, cradle the fruit, preventing it from bruising. Though the primary motivator seems to be preventing waste &#8211; tons of roughed-up Cavendish are discarded each year &#8211; a second advantage, a Tesco produce manager told the Guardian newspaper, is that the shelving allows the chain to fine-tune ripeness, offering fruit at &#8220;all stages&#8221; between yellow and green. What&#8217;s most interesting isn&#8217;t what this means for the banana industry now, but for the future. With the Cavendish breed under attack by a deadly and incurable fungus, new breeds are eventually going to arrive at our stores. From what we know, they are likely to be varieties even more fragile than the fruit we eat today. While this is [...]]]></description>
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		<title>A Guide to Those &quot;Baby&quot; Bananas &#8211; and What They Prove</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/6#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/6#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:33:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Australia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/a-guide-to-those-baby-bananas-and-what-they-prove/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Huggable, lovable &#8211; but not the kind of baby banana that I&#8217;m talking about. Though the vast majority of bananas we buy &#8211; statistically, all &#8211; are of the endangered Cavendish variety, there&#8217;s a good chance you&#8217;ve seen something else, these days and if you&#8217;re a banana-type (or have become one), you might have wondered: what are those little bananas? Both Chiquita and Dole offer versions of the half-sized fruit, with Chiquita selling them under the &#8220;Minis&#8221; brand, and Dole offering them as &#8220;Baby&#8221; bananas. In the &#8220;big&#8221; banana world, there&#8217;s absolutely no difference between what Chiquita, Dole (or any other commercial banana importer) sells: everything is Cavendish. Action surrounds small-time fruit. For the first time in over a century, the two biggest banana companies are slugging it out for a market niche with different varieties. The Chiquita &#8220;Mini&#8221; is a breed called Pisang Mas, originally from Malaysia, but now &#8211; like all bananas imported to the U.S. &#8211; grown in Latin America. Dole actually sells three different varieties under the Baby band name &#8211; Orito, Lady Finger, and Manzano. The fruit are tough to find, since they&#8217;re in various stages of test-marketing, as well as subject to seasonal variation. [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Star Trek Day at Bananabook.org &#8211; and a new T-Shirt of the Month&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/9#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/9#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 May 2009 16:57:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/star-trek-day-at-bananabook-org-and-a-new-t-shirt-of-the-month/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The new movie is out. To celebrate (OK, this is a stretch) I offer this post, featuring a t-shirt I encountered when I went to see a lecture by George Takei &#8211; aka Mr. Sulu, of the original version of the series, and the subsequent movies &#8211; at the California Institute of Technology last month. The organizer wore an awesome banana-themed shirt. Backstory on the shirt: the organizer told me that a couple of years ago, a banana scavenger hunt was held on campus. Students were required to steal as many different variations on the fruit as they could &#8211; pictures, books, or actual edible product. The garment was home-designed as a symbol of the merry adventure. (Also: the speech was amazing. Takei is a gay-rights activist, and he told the story of how, as a boy, he was among those Japanese-Americans forcibly removed to internment camps during World War II, and how the loss of civil rights for his family was no different than it is today for gays denied the right &#8211; among others &#8211; to marriage. Somehow, Takei managed to credibly link this to the vision of the future that Star Trek &#8211; and especially Star Trek creator [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Australian Bananas &#8211; only &#8211; for Australian Flights</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/12#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/12#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2009 07:28:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Australia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/australian-bananas-only-for-australian-flights/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[EVIDENCE: Qantas passenger Toni Rogers found this non-Aussie sticker on her in-flight banana. Image: Cairns Post. Australia and the Philippines both have banana problems: Panama Disease, the wilt that threatens the world&#8217;s commercial banana crop, is present in both places. Australia&#8217;s banana industry is reeling from the malady, which it is attempting &#8211; with little success &#8211;  to contain by quarantining infected plantations. The controversy began two weeks ago, when a passenger on a flight from New Zealand noticed that the Cavendish banana she was served bore a Philippine sticker. Within days, Australian banana growers and politicians were demanding Qantas stop serving non-native fruit &#8211; both as an issue of national pride and to protect the country&#8217;s banana crop. At first, the airline resisted, but last week, it gave in. So, is this &#8220;threat&#8221; for real? Panama Disease is easy to spread. A little bit of dirt could conceivably begin a chain of infection for a continent. But there&#8217;s not much dirt on a washed, picked banana that comes to an airport caterer from a wholesale grocer, as the fruit served aboard Qantas at either end of its flights does. Randy Ploetz, one of the top researchers in Panama Disease [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Banana Nut Cheerios: Review and Rant</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/20#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/20#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:24:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/banana-nut-cheerios-review-and-rant/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You can barely see the bananas on the package, and the product itself could do with a bit more banana flavor, too. You will think I&#8217;m a lousy sourpuss for saying this, but there are WAY too many kinds of Cheerios. But that&#8217;s because you probably don&#8217;t know how many kinds: Eleven. That&#8217;s right. With the addition of the new banana-nut flavor, you now need your toes to count the number of varieties of America&#8217;s favorite breakfast food that are currently available on store shelves. I don&#8217;t care how much you love Cheerios. Eleven kinds? That&#8217;s insane! (There are two Yogurt Burst flavors; only one is shown.) The other thing that&#8217;s totally sucky about Cheerios is the brand&#8217;s constant harping on the &#8220;fact&#8221; that eating it &#8220;may&#8221; reduce the risk of heart disease. SHENANIGANS and BOGOSITY! Not eating a lot of bacon may reduce the risk of heart disease, and Cheerios may a breakfast delight, but can&#8217;t cereal just be advertised as something that tastes good, even if two of the Cheerios varieties are shameless imitations Kellogg&#8217;s Froot Loops and Apple Jacks &#8211; a couple of the best-tasting bowl-and-milk horrors ever created? (See links below for the actual health claims, [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Dole, Others Sued in U.S for Ecuador Pesticides</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/31#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/31#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:43:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/?p=31</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This exclusive report copyright 2008 www.bananabook.org. Two of the world&#8217;s biggest banana companies, the American chemical companies who supply them, along with several other companies they do business with, are being sued by pilots, ground crew, and residents of the Ecuadorian plantation town of Puerto Viejo for health damage they allegedly suffered during years of spraying of Mancozeb, a fungicide used to combat Black Sigatoka, the most common and costly disease affecting commercial bananas. The suit was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.) on September 18, 2008. It names Dole, Monsanto, Dupont, Dow Chemical and Noboa &#8211; which markets bananas in the U.S. under the &#8220;Bonita&#8221; brand name &#8211; as primary defendants, and accuses them of using the chemical despite knowing that it would cause birth defects, cancer, and respiratory and fertility problems among banana workers and their families. Mancozeb is listed by the Pesticde Action Network as having &#8220;toxicity to humans, including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and acute toxicity.&#8221; Mancozeb is a fairly common garden fungicide, and the U.S. EPA regards it as safe, but only in small quantities and with proper protective gear and usage. The suit alleges all were [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Obama&#8217;s Pick For Attorney General Has Banana Problems</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/33#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/33#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:40:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/obamas-pick-for-attorney-general-has-banana-problems/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<br />]]></description>
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		<title>Online Course in Banana Quarantine Techniques</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/35#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/35#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:28:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/online-course-in-banana-quarantine-techniques/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Philippine Lacatan banana tree at market &#8211; from the extensive and fascinating Market Manilla website. The Lacatan is the Philippine&#8217;s &#8220;comfort food&#8221; banana, and one of the world&#8217;s most delicious. One of the most frustrating elements of fighting banana disease (or any disease) is that quarantine actually works &#8211; but only in theory. For over a century, attempts to isolate infected bananas from healthy ones have been attempted, and failed. These efforts have, in fact, generally made things worse, because they&#8217;ve often been accompanied by denial on the part of banana producers that the problem needs to be attacked on other levels, as well (or denial that quarantine is mostly ineffective.) But clean farming can make a difference: it can boost crop yields, and slow the spread of disease &#8211; crucially important to subsistence farmers, for whom even cutting a percentage of loss can be lifesaving. And there have been considerable successes in some recent quarantine programs. Pakistani officials are now offering a pilot program in managing banana diseases that&#8217;s different from traditional efforts, which have usually involved in the field training. This one is all-electronic. In my book, I describe how ambitious field programs in Pakistan failed in the [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Banana Companies Rat Each Other Out</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/39#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/39#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:04:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/banana-companies-rat-each-other-out/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The biggest news item I avoid in this blog are banana trade wars. That&#8217;s because it would take me thousands and thousands of words to explain why the U.S., Europe, and the big banana companies have been fighting for years over who gets to sell bananas where. There have been resolutions that have led to no resolutions, problems that have led to more problems, and lots of ugly behavior on both sides. Suffice it to say that the whole thing is corrupt, and that none of it really affects whether or not bananas show up on store shelves (though it does affect where those bananas come from, and prices, as you&#8217;ll see, below.) The problem is that when you enter the labyrinth, you just can&#8217;t find your way back. Sorry. But sometimes, I just have to say something. Last week, Dole and Del Monte &#8211; Dole&#8217;s the second biggest banana company in the world, and Del Monte, depending on how you count, is probably third or fourth &#8211; were fined a total of $83 million by the European Union for conspiring to fix banana prices in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Sweden. These fines were good. [...]]]></description>
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