How Organic Are Organic Bananas?
From Jeff Cox:
Strangely enough, although bananas are grown far away in tropical and often exotic regions of the world, they are one of the most ubiquitous organic fruits available to us. The reason is that while many of our other fruits are locally-grown, and therefore of spotty organic availability, bananas come to us through a huge network of large corporate plantations and international delivery systems. We may believe our organic bananas come from dedicated, small-scale, organic family farmers, but that’s a romantic notion that’s almost never the case.
The Dole Corporation is the largest supplier of organic bananas to the U.S., Western Europe, and Canada, but there are also Quinta Organica, Organics Unlimited, Sabrosa, and Eco Organic. Denny Gibson of Puget Consumers Co-op (PCC), the largest consumer-owned food co-op in America with 40,000 members and seven stores in the Puget Sound area, says that when the superior organic bananas provided by Quinta Organica aren’t available, the co-op turns to Dole. Because of Dole’s historical record as a chemically-oriented, agribusiness giant, some members challenged PCC about selling Dole bananas. Gibson and his wife Monica toured some of the big suppliers in South America, including the Dole organic banana plantation in Manabi, Ecuador, and here’s what he reports:
Overall, we felt the plantation was well organized, the employees had a clean and safe working environment, and the administrators expressed a commitment to organic farming methods, fair treatment of their employees, and protection of the natural environment. Granted, it was a one day visit, we aren’t soil scientists, and we didn’t have a chance to interview the employees. Industry insiders claim Dole executives have said publicly they really “don’t believe” in the organic “fad,” and that Dole imports every [farming] input possible instead of making it locally, which doesn’t support sustainable agriculture. But what we saw was quite positive compared to what most people might imagine from a multinational corporation.
One of the smaller organic producers is Quinta Organica, located in southern Ecuador. PCC’s customers have commented on the superior flavor, creamy texture, and consistent appearance of Quinta’s bananas. Quinta’s founder and CEO, Werner Forster, says the difference is due to rich, fertile soil and organic fertilizers, proper care of the plants, and harvesting the bananas at a slightly more advanced stage of development.
Whether Quinta or Dole, organic banana culture is light years more eco-friendly than conventional. Here’s why. First of all, conventional farm workers and banana wranglers are exposed to harmful chemicals. On the plantations, conventional growers fertilize the soil with 1.5 tons per acre of 8:10:8. The numbers refer to chemical nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium in the fertilizer. Unless organic matter is returned to tropical soils, they soon lose the life in the soil that depends on actively decaying organic matter. Without a rich diversity of soil life, diseases and pests can proliferate.
“Black sigatoka fungus in banana plantations has reached global epidemic proportions,” according to Dr. Emile Frison, a Belgian scientist who heads the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain, as reported in New Scientist magazine. He says the Cavendish banana variety is being attacked around the world by Panama disease, a soil-borne wilt that destroyed the superior Gros Michel strain of bananas in the 1950s. Fungicides are proving increasingly ineffective, but Dr. Frison is looking to biotechnology and genetic modification to save the world’s bananas and plantains, on which half a billion people depend for a staple food.
He’s looking in the wrong place.
It’s been shown that soils teeming with soil life prevent outbreaks of diseases and funguses that wreak wholesale destruction on crops, especially the kind of fusarium wilts of which Panama disease is a type. The problem is that lifeless chemical soils fertilized with nothing but mineral macronutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium have no autoimmunity to diseases, whereas rich, organic soils do. Conventional banana growers also use a host of toxic chemicals against pests. Nematodes (destructive soil worms) are controlled with carbofuran, Dasanit, Ethoprop, and phenamiphos. Yet nematodes can be controlled organically by proper tillage, sun exposure, and crop rotations with nematode-destroying Pangola grass. Black weevil is controlled with dieldrin and heptachlor; banana rust thrips with dieldrin, diazinon, and dursban, and banana scab moth with injections of pesticides into the growing stems. Yet all of these are controlled with non-toxic techniques on organic banana plantations.
As for fertilizers, bananas and plantains are heavy feeders. Harvesting five tons of fruit from an acre depletes the soil of 22 pounds of nitrogen, four pounds of phosphorus, and 55 pounds of potassium. Instead of applying chemical fertilizers, if the old plant stems and leaves from one plantation acre are chopped and incorporated into the soil, 404 pounds of nitrogen, 101 pounds of phosphorus, and 1,513 pounds of potassium are returned to the soil. If this material is composted with other organic matter, even more is returned. The result? Under organic cultivation, the soil improves in health, amount of soil life, availability of nutrients, resistance to soil pests and diseases, and its ability to produce extra high quality bananas and plantains.
That’s on the plantations. After harvest, bunches of conventional bananas are floated in tanks of sodium hydrochlorate solution to dissolve the drips of latex sap that can discolor the fruit.
Experiments have shown that fungicide-treated bananas can develop off-flavors. Yet “hands” of bananas (the small bunches we see in markets) are conventionally treated with fungicides by being placed in polyethylene bags with blocks of vermiculite treated with potassium permanganate to absorb the ethylene ripening gas that bananas give off. This allows the bananas to be stored and shipped over a month’s time before they start ripening.
The point is that organic bananas are well worth seeking out because their production avoids a host of toxic chemicals that affect everything from the health of the plantation soils and surrounding ecosystems, to the health of the workers who grow and handle them, to the health of those of us who eat them.
Besides the standard Cavendish type, red bananas, sometimes called Red Cuban or Red Spanish, are no longer rare in our markets. They are greenish maroon when unripe but turn more bronzy-red when ripe, with black flecks and ends when fully ripe. Their flesh is very aromatic, creamy-yellowish-orange, and denser than Cavendish. I prefer them for their better flavor and firmer, creamy texture.
In Latino markets, especially Puerto Rican, you will find 10-inch, green banana-like fruits called plantains. Plantains are a starchy vegetable that are almost always cooked, but can be used at any stage of ripeness. They taste like a cross between potato and squash. They’re very starchy when green and unripe, and are usually peeled, sliced on the bias, and added to soups or fried. They become yellow and brown when semi-ripe, when they’re normally boiled or sauteed and served as a side dish. When they turn black and slightly sweet, they’re often baked in their skins and served as dessert.
Latin Americans make tostones using plantains when the skins are almost entirely black. Then they peel them, slice them about ¾-inch thick on the bias, and fry the slices in enough oil to cover until they are light golden and partially cooked. The slices are then removed from the oil, cooled and drained, then placed between sheets of wax paper. The bottom of a glass is used to smash them flat. Then they’re returned to the hot oil until they are golden brown.
In the Dominican Republic, casseroles are made from layers of ground beef fried with piccalilly and raisins alternating with layers of boiled, mashed, ripe plantains mixed with eggs, flour, butter, milk, and ground cloves, then topped with cheese and baked until golden brown.
A popular dish in Puerto Rico is mofongo. Fried green plantain is mashed with fried pork rind, seasoned with thickened stock, garlic, salt, and pepper, formed into a ball and served hot immediately, before it turns hard. Puerto Ricans also use plantain flour to make a pastry dough, stuff it with meat, and wrap it in plantain leaves to make a sort of tamale that’s either boiled or fried.
Many uses are made of bananas and plantains in Africa and around the world, especially in the Indo-Malaysian region where the wild banana progenitor of our cultivated varieties originated. These fruits are very seedy, but other parts of the plants are eaten. The banana plant is not a woody tree, but rather an herbaceous flowering pseudostem—really an elongated leaf petiole—that bears one crop and then dies back. Under cultivation, these stems are immediately removed after the bunches of fruit are harvested, otherwise multiple stems will cause the loss of fruit quality. A new stem is then allowed to grow from the stool, as the stump is called.
Scientists have investigated the supposed hallucinogenic properties of dried, smoked banana peel (really they have) but have found no such effect.
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See also Lisa’s Crunchy Frozen Organic Bananas For Kids Recipe
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Jeff Cox is author of The Organic Cook’s Bible and The Organic Food Shopper’s Guide and lives in Sonoma County, California.
Image Credit: © Isatori | Dreamstime.com
OrganicToBe.org | OrganicToGo.com
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and lives in Sausalito, California.
