Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe15
There is always a debate between what is and isn't edible, if we go with the literal, most basic meaning of the word, then every banana in the world makes an edible fruit, as none of them will harm you, and you can eat them and use them in different ways for consumption.
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It will still "boil" down to what we consider a banana. If we define them to be all members of the the Musa genus, I've read that some of them can be really nasty to some people as we could have some reations to the sap, perhaps the seeds of some species.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe15
However, in order to maintain the difference between normal wild bananas, and those special cultivated types which have the all-important parthenocarpic (forming fruit without pollination, thus without seeds) trait, the term "edible" is only applied to the cultivated, parthenocarpic varieties, not wild, seeded types. The distinction between these two groups (albeit the borders can be fuzzy at times) of bananas is very important to recognize and the term "edible" is this context is intended to apply only to cultivated, non-seeded, parthenocarpic bananas. For if seeds were forever present in bananas, they would surely not be anywhere near the scale of cultivation as a food crop as they are today.
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This is mostly a biased western thinking and I can understand that. I have lived part of my life in the tropics and have grown and eaten many types of bananas there that I was laughing when I get to the US initially to find only two types of bananas in the store.
The point is that you cannot generalize globally, about the context of being edible based on presence or absence of seeds. You the expert should know the fact that the majority of the bananas are not consumed in the west, but locally, and hence seeded or not they became important food crops. You also know the fact that there are varying degrees of seediness in other cultivars.
The saba is a good example, you can frequently come across some real seeds when you eat them, but it hasn't stopped from becoming a staple food in some parts of the world. Compare that to the common grown for export cavendish types that are marketed to US, Europe and Japan which is completely seedless. We value the saba locally way much higher than the Cavendish types even in the presence of occasional seeds. And we can see it in the local prices. I used to remember walking on piles of cavendish bananas left to rot by the piers with people ignoring them. These seedless bananas are those that spilled over from cargoes. With those piles pushed into the side, left to rot, and the irony of it all, some people carrying bunches of the occassionally seeded saba. And as you know it already, in times of survival, when you are in the forest, even the extremely seeded bananas can tide you over.
But amongst the other cavendish types, we also prize the Lakatan. The red skinned bananas are also excellent even if harder to grow.
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