Banded Bananas

[Chesterton]

These recently appeared at my grocery store. Right next to the regular bananas are banded bananas. They look like bananas, walk like bananas, quack like bananas. The only difference I can tell is that banded bananas are banded, they have a plastic band around the bunch. The only other difference is that they are 10 cents cheaper per pound, which in percentage terms is more than 20% cheaper. I've Googled "banded bananas" and got nothing relevant. Anyone know what it means? Mama didn't raise no fool, and I'm not forking over an extra dime unless there's some reason to.

 

[Occams Barber]

These recently appeared at my grocery store. Right next to the regular bananas are banded bananas. They look like bananas, walk like bananas, quack like bananas. The only difference I can tell is that banded bananas are banded, they have a plastic band around the bunch. The only other difference is that they are 10 cents cheaper per pound, which in percentage terms is more than 20% cheaper. I've Googled "banded bananas" and got nothing relevant. Anyone know what it means? Mama didn't raise no fool, and I'm not forking over an extra dime unless there's some reason to.

I once lived close to bananas so I can help with this.

Your more expensive, unbanded bananas were picked by freshly showered, golden haired Scandinavian virgins. The bananas were picked on a dewy dawn just as they were lightly kissed (the bananas not the virgins) by the sun’s golden rays. Pastel coloured Unicorns may have also been involved.

Yer cheap banded bananas? Picked late on a hot afternoon by a couple of sweaty, hirsute Canadian backpackers with dubious personal hygiene habits.

You’re welcome.

OB

 

[Chesterton]

I once lived close to bananas...

Ah, you lucky man. That's always been a dream of mine. To live close to fruits. Closest I've come is spending a week in San Francisco.

 

[Albion]

The banded bananas Ive seen--only lately--are fifteen cents or so more expensive because they are organically grown (whatever that means). They taste the same.

 

[Chesterton]

The banded bananas Ive seen--only lately--are fifteen cents or so more expensive because they are organically grown (whatever that means). They taste the same.

My store's got three kinds, side by side - banded, regular and organic. The prices are about 40, 50 and 60 cents respectively. The only thing I can think of is that without a band wrapped around the bunch, people break off a few bananas because they don't want the whole bunch. You can't do that with the band around them, so maybe it forces you to buy more than you would and they offer a lower price as incentive? I don't know.

 

[Tanj]

I once lived close to bananas so I can help with this.

Your more expensive, unbanded bananas were picked by freshly showered, golden haired Scandinavian virgins. The bananas were picked on a dewy dawn just as they were lightly kissed (the bananas not the virgins) by the sun’s golden rays. Pastel coloured Unicorns may have also been involved.

Yer cheap banded bananas? Picked late on a hot afternoon by a couple of sweaty, hirsute Canadian backpackers with dubious personal hygiene habits.

You’re welcome.

OB

Given that bananas grow in tropical climes, part of the price hike is the Golden Haired Scandinavian Virgin Import Tax. Having visited the banana plantations in Queensland, I'm afraid the second part of your post is too true to be funny.

 

[Occams Barber]

Ah, you lucky man. That's always been a dream of mine. To live close to fruits. Closest I've come is spending a week in San Francisco.

San Francisco - I hear it's quite.....'agricultural' in that part of the world.

Where I live we grow bananas and blueberries AND macadamias.
(plus sugar cane, pineapples and avocados)

Our fruit comes complete with nuts.

OB

 

[Occams Barber]

Given that bananas grow in tropical climes, part of the price hike is the Golden Haired Scandinavian Virgin Import Tax. Having visited the banana plantations in Queensland, I'm afraid the second part of your post is too true to be funny.

(Sigh........ I can recall when Virgins were a ten dollars a bag. Five dollars if you didn't mind them slightly shop soiled.)

Believe it or not Tanj, banana plantations are alive and well several hundred kilometres south of the Queensland border in northern NSW.

Just below the Qld/NSW border you've got pineapple plantations and avocado farms. Further south you're into sugar cane (just like Far North Queensland) on the flood plains of the northern rivers. Around Byron Bay you're into macadamias, more avocados, ex hippies and a primary resting place for (almost .. but not quite) Scandinavian virgins.

Further south below Grafton you're into blueberry territory and (lo and behold!) when you see banana plantations (and more avocados) growing up the rocky hillsides on the coast, you've just hit Coffs Harbour.

The new Backpacker tax (did they pass that bill??) is more likely to affect the Korean backpacker/blueberry picker population. I haven't seen a Scandinavian (virgin or otherwise) in a dog's age.

OB

 

[ripple the car]

I once saw a group of teenagers go through Walmart's self-check with a single grape. It cost them three cents.

 

[Tanj]

Believe it or not Tanj

Hm, choices, choices....

Around Byron Bay

I got married at Rae's.

 

[Occams Barber]

Hm, choices, choices....
I got married at Rae's.

My apologies Tanj. I probably come across as being a bit pedantic about the geography. I live north of Coffs and I find many southerners think that means I must live in Queensland. I think it's the banana connection.

I've never been to Rae's but I've heard good reports.
OB

 

[Chesterton]

Okay suddenly I'm less interested in bananas and would like to hear more about these Golden Haired Scandinavian Virgins...

 

[Resha Caner]

... organically grown (whatever that means) ...

It means they were grown by rich liberals on a small plot of choice land, and that these people think their methods can be scaled up to solve all the world's health and food problems.

The main idea is to only use materials that occur "naturally" (no manufactured fertilizers or insecticides/pesticides, no genetically modified products). So, the idea is to only use materials that would occur if people weren't present, and then people interfere and reorganize them in a way that would never occur if people weren't present ... umm ... well, ya know.

It's a noble sentiment, but if the idea is to produce enough food to feed the world without causing significant damage to the landscape, there are better ways that, much to the chagrin of those rich liberals pretending to live a pastoral life on their choice land, are highly engineered.

Oddly enough, the leaders in new agricultural methods are the very groups those rich liberals hate such as Archer Daniels and Howard Buffet (son of billionaire Warren).

 

[Albion]

Pretty much what I suspected, but I gave them a try out of curiosity.

 

[Occams Barber]

Okay suddenly I'm less interested in bananas and would like to hear more about these Golden Haired Scandinavian Virgins...

Relax son. I may have misled you.

The Golden Haired Scandinavian Virgin is really my borrowing from the, rurally based, ‘Myth of the Goddess Fruitpicker’. This myth is much beloved by post pubescent young men in small country towns as a subject for nocturnal imaginings.

Bananafying the myth allowed me the literary licence to play with the potent symbology of the banana as a totemic expression of masculine fruitiness

OB

 

[Chesterton]

Relax son. I may have misled you.

The Golden Haired Scandinavian Virgin is really my borrowing from the, rurally based, ‘Myth of the Goddess Fruitpicker’. This myth is much beloved by post pubescent young men in small country towns as a subject for nocturnal imaginings.

Bananafying the myth allowed me the literary licence to play with the potent symbology of the banana as a totemic expression of masculine fruitiness

OB

Well excuse me, you know, I ask a simple question about bananas wasn't expecting classical literary allusions, sheesh. You just go back to playing with your potent totem, or whatever it is you said.

 

[Occams Barber]

Well excuse me, you know, I ask a simple question about bananas wasn't expecting classical literary allusions, sheesh. You just go back to playing with your potent totem, or whatever it is you said.

"Playing with your Potent totem"!!
Literally a little literary alliteration.
Well done !

(Chardonnay anyone?)
OB

 

[Cearbhall]

Funnily enough, I grabbed some banded bananas this week because they were 29 cents per pound. I, too, briefly wondered why they were banded. In this case, they were organic, so I assumed there was a sale because demand for organic bananas was low.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Definately where I lives they would be organic so to pay less would be a bonus!

 

[gasol]

San Francisco - I hear it's quite.....'agricultural' in that part of the world.