this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
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I have some bad news about bananas. The current strain we use as food is going extinct as the banana trees are ill and dying out. Luckily we're already changing a different strain to be ready for consumption (making them bigger and without seeds because yes, wild bananas are full of seeds).
Also cocoa plants are ill and dying and we don't have a different strain. So some time in the future we will be without chocolate.
NO CHOCOLATE??? I can't bear the thought of no chocolate
It's also not the first time it's happened to bananas. You know how banana candy tastes so different to the real thing. That's how the previous commercial strain used to taste before it was nearly exticted by disease.
I have had Gros Michel bananas. They do not taste like banana candy, although weirdly they do smell like the candy much more strongly than the Cavendish.
From what I understand people used to let them brown completely before eating them, which would have a different taste to what we consider ripe today. Also, it was used a lot more in cooking, which likely enhanced that particular flavor.
I thought it was because the chemical banana taste is just a bit different becsue of how it's made, but apparently it's because it's based on older bananas, as I found out in this article.
Big mike! Or gros Michel. Whichever you prefer to call it.
The replacement for the Cavendish is already being sold commercially in Australia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldfinger_banana
And it's pretty good, though I think Cavendish is better
How do they taste? I haven't gotten to try one yet.
Like bananas
Thanks
Bananas have seeds? 😳
Wild bananas, yes.
The ones you eat are a perfect example of a genetically modified plant - cultivated specifically for human consumption.
they are also triploids, means they are sterile. they do some wierd things like forcing the original bananas to have unreduced gametes. Also note that polyploidy in planets allows them to do this naturally, also give a them evolutionary advantages, the ones that arnt odd number polyploids.
Well, every natural plant have seeds. They need to reproduce. Those without seeds go extinct in one generation.
for some. some can clone themselves indefinitely, while still maintaing thier ability outcross(breed). there are some small examples of natural hybrids that are sterile and can only clone/reproduce because they are triploids. like strawberries can have up to 8n of thier chromosones, and hybridize.
Like the other replies say, wild ones do. But the ones we eat used to have them too, but we did the same magic on them as we did on wolves by creating pugs. They used to be small and so full of seeds there was barily any eatable parts.
or using different species, like blue or red ones instead. wild ones have huge seeds.
I have a sudden inspiration for a new gmo food.
People are working on that already. Did not work until now as far as I know.
This is a problem that has been known for a while.
My Choconanas will take the world by storm