Bananas looked totally different in the 1940s 'before disaster struck

The banana you know and love is in trouble.A variety called the Cavendish, which makes up the majority of banana imports around the world (and is America's most popular food), is being publicly mourned from the UK to our own Tech Insider newsroom.The problem is a strain of fungus that infects the roots of a banana tree and keeps the plant from taking in nutrients and water.History seems to be repeating itself. The bananas your grandparents ate were a variety called Gros Michel, which apparently make bananas at your grocery store seem unbearably bland by comparison.So what was so great about the Gros Michel, and how did we get here'You've seen this banana before: It's the Cavendish. The US importednearly 4.8 billion tons of them in 2012, and worldwide banana exports these days are worth about $8.9 billion.Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United NationsThis is Gros Michel, also called Big Mike. Bananas were still an exotic delicacyuntil the late 1800s ' when the United Fruit Company (UFC) single-handedly popularized this variety of bananas on a global scale.Source: Quartz.com,the New York TimesGros Michels were sweet, creamy, and sturdy. You could throw them in a ship's cargo hold and they'd show up at their destination, perfectly ripe and unbruised.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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