Hey, smarty pants. Besides vegetables, what's a food group that adults are always suggesting you eat more of?
Did someone say pizza?
Nom nom nom nom nom.
Can I come live at your house?
But seriously, I bet most of you said, or at least thought, fruit.
So what's your favorite fruit?
Shout them out. I heard grapes, strawberries, blueberries, watermelon, mango, kiwi.
And there's that kid with the pizza again.
Nice try. I wish. Okay, smarty pants.
Now that you've told me some of the fruits you like, I'd like you to tell me this.
What is the second most popular fruit worldwide?
Not number one, but the number two fruit in the world.
Is it A, apples, B, bananas, C, oranges, or D, dragonflies?
Oops, sorry, my mistake.
I meant to say D, dragon fruit.
If you said B, bananas, I'm afraid you slipped up.
When it comes to popular fruits, the apple is number two.
Second banana to the banana.
The banana is the most popular fruit in the world.
More than 100 billion bananas are eaten each year.
And overall, only wheat, rice, and milk are more valuable than the banana.
It's no ordinary food crop.
Knock, knock. Um, there's some fascinating things about the banana.
Knock, knock. That, um, make it very unique, including.
Knock, knock. I'm sorry, smarty pants.
There's someone at my door saying knock, knock.
I better see what they want.
Who's there? Banana.
Banana who? Knock, knock.
Who's there? Banana.
Banana who? Knock, knock.
Who's there? Banana.
Banana who? Knock, knock.
Who? Oh, wait a second.
I've heard this joke before.
I'll say who's there and you'll say Orange.
And I'll say Orange who and you'll say Detective Orange, FBI, open up.
Okay, I wasn't expecting that here with the FBI.
Yes, the funny banana investigators.
I noticed some funny banana business happening here.
Oh, you mean these guys here?
Hello, hello, hello.
As I suspected, once you let one in, more will follow.
They're a slippery bunch.
I wouldn't say a bunch.
They're lone bananas.
Are you being funny narrator?
Do you like jokes about bananas?
Well, you have to admit they've got a certain appeal.
I'm just saying they came in individually.
Maybe, but there's nothing individual about them.
Look at these bananas.
They're all the same.
Hello, hello, hello.
And these bananas are identical to your neighbor's bananas, which are identical to bananas in Boise, Idaho, Brussels, and Berlin.
In fact, these bananas are exactly like the ones hanging out in kitchens around the world.
Maybe your smarty pants are eating one right now.
Practically, every banana is identical.
But how and why? And why might your favorite banana one day disappear forever?
Huh? It's time for another whiff of science on who smarted who smarted who smart is it you?
Is it me? Is it science or history?
Listen up, everyone.
We make smarting lots of fun on who smarted.
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Chances are, smarty pants, you're very familiar with the banana.
Not only is it the most popular fruit in the world, it's often one of the first foods humans eat.
The soft, sweet banana is easy to digest, making it a very common baby food.
Ahh. It's also a great source of fiber, potassium, magnesium, and vitamin C and B6.
Bananas also contain a good amount of sugar and carbohydrates.
But how well do you actually know this fruit?
Smarty pants, what do bananas grow from?
Is it a tree? An herb?
A vine? Or a weed? Even though the thing bananas grow on might look like a tree and is often called a banana tree, bananas actually come from a giant herb that can reach heights of 10 to 20 feet or three to six meters.
It's actually the world's largest herb, and the banana itself, botanically speaking, is a berry.
Whoa. Yes, my investigation already uncovered that bananas are berries, while surprisingly, strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries are not.
Huh? That's odd. Why is that?
Some scientific gobbledygook about the type of flower the fruit comes from.
Also, it has to do with the seeds.
Ooh, smarty pants, true or false?
Bananas have seeds.
The answer is true.
All berries do, but the seeds in the banana you eat are so tiny, they can't do what seeds normally do, which is make more fruit plants.
But wait, bananas are the number one fruit in the world.
If a banana seeds can't grow more bananas, how do we wind up with so many of them?
Hello, hello, hello.
It's a little trick called cloning.
Huh? Using a piece of fruit plant, a farmer can grow a replica or exact copy of the plant.
Believe it or not, they do this for all kinds of fruit, but they take it to the extreme with bananas, cloning just one type.
While you might have seen or tried different varieties of apples, grapes, or strawberries, there's a good chance you'll go through life eating just one type of banana.
Well, that used to be the case.
You might all be forced to try a new type of banana soon.
A new banana? Why? Because today's bananas are in danger.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
Hey, bananas, quit going bananas.
Wait, the bananas in danger?
That's right. There's a banana killer on the loose.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
Bananas, quit being so yellow.
Unfortunately, we've seen this type of killer before.
It helps if you know your banana history.
Smarty pants, where were bananas first grown as fruit for people to eat?
Is it A, South America, B, the Mediterranean, or C, Southeast Asia?
We believe it's C, Southeast Asia, but it spread in ancient times to Europe and Africa.
And shortly after Europeans reached the Americas, bananas followed.
They thrived in tropic climates.
For most of the time they've been around, bananas were a fancy schmancy fruit, enjoyed by only a handful of the population.
But then in the late 1800s, an American company called United Fruit bought a ton of land in Guatemala and started growing bananas on a massive scale.
Let the record show, United Fruit treated its workers and people of Guatemala poorly, but they gave us the bananas we eat today.
But what about the banana killer?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm getting to that.
United Fruit realized they could make oodles of cash growing and selling just one type of banana.
So they cloned one called the Gross Michelle.
Ew. No, no, it's not gross.
Gross Michelle is French.
Bonjour. English speaking folks often called it by its loosely translated name, Big Mike.
Call me Big Mike. United Fruit made a fortune cloning Gross Michels.
Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour.
And because each banana was an exact copy of the original, each banana was flawless.
Your great -grandparents might have liked these, but chances are you've never had one.
Why is that? Because they're all dead.
Le mort. Yikes. Who killed Big Mike?
It was Panama disease.
No, not Panama disease.
Uh, what's Panama disease?
Yeah, yeah. A deadly root fungus.
From Panama? No, from Asia.
But that doesn't matter.
What matters is Panama disease is devastating to bananas and the banana cloning process with its lack of variety makes them weak against illness and pests.
If a disease can kill one banana herb, it can kill them all.
And that's what's happening to Big Mike.
The attack on the clone started in 1890.
No, no, no. I didn't say attack of the clones.
I said attack on the clones.
As I was saying, Panama disease started attacking the banana clones, wiping out huge amounts of crops.
And it was spreading everywhere.
Now, say you were to lose a variety of apple like the Macintosh.
You'd get by because you still had Fuji's, Gala's, Granny Smith's, and Red Delicious, to name a few.
But like I said, there's just one dominant banana in the whole world.
Losing that meant losing the only thing anyone recognized as a banana.
United Fruit was in a pickle.
They pickled bananas?
No, I meant they were in trouble.
They had to find another type of banana fast and make that the most dominant variety.
It had to be one that could resist Panama disease.
And of course, for people to like it, it had to taste exactly like the gross Michelle.
Bonjour. Ah, I'm assuming since we have bananas today, they were successful.
Absolutely. Not. Around 75 years ago, United Fruit replaced Big Mike with a banana that wasn't as sweet or tasty, but could survive Panama disease.
Smarty Pants, do you know what this banana is called?
Is it A, the Cavendish, B, the Honeycrisp, or C, the Plantain?
Surprisingly, it's not the Plantain.
While Plantains are bananas, we don't call it a banana because it's eaten differently.
For one thing, you cook Plantains.
They're sweeter and more starchy.
Also, they too can get Panama disease.
No, the banana that was immune to Panama disease is the Cavendish, a mutant strain of Plantain that can be eaten without cooking.
United Fruit did a good job advertising their Cavendish Banana and it became even more popular than the gross Michelle.
Today, it's the top banana.
But if you're still curious as to what Big Mike might have tasted like, try banana flavored candy.
Banana flavoring was created during a time of the gross Michelle and is said to taste more like Big Mike than today's bananas.
It's very interesting.
Hey, where'd they go?
I think those bananas split.
No, they're behind the couch, hiding.
There's a killer after us.
Yeah, yeah. It's true.
There is. And we'll learn all about it right after this quick break.
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That's why I fell in love with Babbel.
When I first started using it, I was amazed at how quickly I could actually start speaking useful phrases when I went to Germany, not just textbook vocabulary, but real -world conversations that matter.
Babbel's 10 -minute lessons, designed by over 200 language experts, fit perfectly into my busy life as a trusty narrator, and their speech recognition technology helps me nail the pronunciation almost every time.
The best part? One study found that just 15 hours with Babbel equals a full semester of college language learning.
That's incredible. And with 16 million subscriptions sold, it's clear I'm not the only one seeing results.
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So here's a special holiday deal just for our listeners.
Right now, get up to 60 % off your Babbel subscription, only for our listeners, at babel .com slash smarted.
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It's spelled B -A -B -B -E -L dot com slash smarted.
Rules and restrictions may apply.
Now back to Who Smarted.
Yikes! What's happening to those bananas?
As I suspected, they're going bad.
Happens quickly with bananas.
Just like other fruits, bananas produce a chemical called ethylene that makes them ripen.
You know, turn yellow, tastier, et cetera.
Most fruits ripen with just a small amount of ethylene, but bananas produce too much, which means they over ripen fast, turning brown and going bad in a matter of days.
I'm a bad banana. Me too.
Me too. Hey, that was my Who Smarted coffee mug.
Sorry. I'll get these bananas out of here in a sec, but first about the banana killer.
Yes. Who's hunting today's banana?
Unfortunately, Panama disease, which killed off Big Mike, has adapted as diseases often do.
Since the 1990s, it's been attacking the Cavendish banana, destroying crops in Asia and Africa.
Scientists fear it's only a matter of time before it hits South America, and then we have no bananas.
In order for there to be bananas, farmers will need to find yet another banana crop like they did to replace Big Mike, or scientists will use genetic technology to create a Cavendish that can fight off this new strain of Panama disease.
Either way, the banana of the future will be different than the banana of today.
I am the banana of the future.
Wow. Thank you, Detective.
Orange. As in, Orange, you're glad I'll be taking these bananas with me.
Actually, they can stay.
If they're going away, I want to spend some time with them.
Yay! Yay! Yay! You sure?
They can be a wild bunch.
Uh, they're all ripe.
A super shout out to superfan Alex from Long Beach, New York.
Thanks for listening to Who Smarted and for going to space camp with us.
Now that's how you smart.
This episode, Bananas, was written by Dave Banana Ramabodri and voiced by Brandon Banana Bread Baelas, Adam Top Banana Davis, and Jerry Colbert.
Technical direction and sound designed by Josh have a banana Han.
Who Smarted is recorded and mixed at the Relik Room Studios.
Our associate producer is Max Kukoo Bananas Kamaski.
The theme song is by Brian Banana Smoothie Suarez with lyrics written and performed by Adam Tex Davis.
Who Smarted was created and produced by Adam Tex Davis and Jerry Colbert.
This has been an Atomic Entertainment production.
