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Bananas

 
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R2Icon



Joined: 10 Sep 2009
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 8:55 am    Post subject: Bananas Reply with quote

I've long been puzzled by Bananas. They are inexpensive and plentiful, they're in just about every food shop in the UK. How do they get here? They come from far away and usually smallish hot places, yet we are inundated with them , fresh every day. If you were to post just one Banana to say, the Windward Islands, it would cost the price of family hatchback to send it and take so long to get there, that it would have decomposed to dust before ever being opened and peeled.

So how can we enjoy fresh Bananas every day for tuppence?
There's something going on with Bananas , something big, I think it might have something to do with aliens or sinister genetic farming expeiments or both.
It takes weeks to sail from the aforementioned faraway hot places to get here, so for us to have fresh Bananas every day must mean there's a gazillion Banana boats heading our way all the time. Have you ever seen a Banana boat? No. Me neither. Not one. Not ever.
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R2Icon



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

And it's not just Bananas.

Ok, imagine that you're piglet, just been born. Nice and pink. Life is sweet, mum looks after you in a nice warm dry place. As you get older, you get fed, watered and looked after by someone in wellies, you get to play in the mud, you get older, you get your very own arc, bedding changed regularly, fed every day: life is a breeze. Everything you need just appears as if by magic, no effort required on your part, none of those instictive feelings you have about foraging for food ever turn into a reality because, well life is good, I'm warm, well fed and happy. Then one day the man in wellies takes you for a ride in his big truck, it's only when you see your best friend hung up my his back legs, shot in the head and gutted right there in front of you that you realise why life has been so easy...you've been farmed.

So I suppose my question about Bananas is really, who or what is farming us and why? No one ever said life should be easy, so when life does become easy, the least we should be, is suspicious.
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RockitRon



Joined: 07 Dec 2006
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:47 am    Post subject: Re: Bananas Reply with quote

R2Icon wrote:
Have you ever seen a Banana boat? No. Me neither. Not one. Not ever.


Laughing Laughing Laughing


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R2Icon



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh that's made my day, Ron, Very Happy I like that.
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RockitRon



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

R2Icon wrote:
And it's not just Bananas.

Ok, imagine that you're piglet, just been born. Nice and pink. Life is sweet, mum looks after you in a nice warm dry place. As you get older, you get fed, watered and looked after by someone in wellies, you get to play in the mud, you get older, you get your very own arc, bedding changed regularly, fed every day: life is a breeze. Everything you need just appears as if by magic, no effort required on your part, none of those instictive feelings you have about foraging for food ever turn into a reality because, well life is good, I'm warm, well fed and happy. Then one day the man in wellies takes you for a ride in his big truck, it's only when you see your best friend hung up my his back legs, shot in the head and gutted right there in front of you that you realise why life has been so easy...you've been farmed.

So I suppose my question about Bananas is really, who or what is farming us and why? No one ever said life should be easy, so when life does become easy, the least we should be, is suspicious.


Blimey, Rach.
There I was, composing a long piece about the nation's love of bananas, to the extent that Morrisons are investing millions in a banana-ripening factory, and how they cost in the shops a fraction of what it takes to grow and ship them, and then you come up with a darker and more philosophical conundrum.

Life is never easy, I would be extremely suspicious if it was, and when it comes to thinking about who's farming us I'd rather be kept in the dark. I read and learn enough that's depressing already.
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R2Icon



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 10:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY9rK1YXAIk&feature=youtube_gdata_player



But life is easy, Ron, broadly speaking anyway, there are always exceptions of course but we do have it quite easy as a nation, lots of food, entertainment and other fun things. I'm ever mindful of the Pleasure Island scenes in Disney's Pinocchio.
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R2Icon



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 10:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgmfV5VLHvs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

This both terrified and facinated me as a child.
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RockitRon



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 10:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

R2Icon wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgmfV5VLHvs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

This both terrified and facinated me as a child.


Indeed - and that was just the toned-down, Disney version of the tale.

You are right, of course, our life is easy, compared to the majority of the world's population.

But most of them don't know any different, and probably think that their life is easy as well.
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tiny51



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 10:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

See the big supermarket now fed up with price now they going for where they get them. Full page advert.
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RockitRon



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think you are referring there to the rejection by the advertising regulator of Sainsbury's compliant against Tesco's Price Promise on the grounds that it didn't really compare like with like, because, for example, Sainsbury's basic/"value" ham is all British, and their bananas are all "Fairtrade", which ensures that the producers are paid a fair price, not determined by market forces, and Tesco's do not.

Hence the full page ads in today's papers

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/tesco-and-sainsburys-price-match-war-intensifies/4007515.article
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R2Icon



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

RockitRon wrote:
I think you are referring there to the rejection by the advertising regulator of Sainsbury's compliant against Tesco's Price Promise on the grounds that it didn't really compare like with like, because, for example, Sainsbury's basic/"value" ham is all British, and their bananas are all "Fairtrade", which ensures that the producers are paid a fair price, not determined by market forces, and Tesco's do not.

Hence the full page ads in today's papers

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/tesco-and-sainsburys-price-match-war-intensifies/4007515.article


You see. Bananas, it's all about Bananas. It always comes down to Bananas. I don't like Bananas, I rarely eat one but when I do, I can eat only two thirds of a Banana cos the last bit always makes me feel like being sick, so I never eat the last third. This however, has recently also become the first third, so I eat just the bit in the middle, the fat part.
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RockitRon



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PostPosted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 6:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, I don't know what it is about bananas either.
I like them, but I don't actually eat many - one a week, if they're lucky.
Son is like you, they make him feel sick (bananas and garden peas, oddly).
But they are apparently the nation's favourite fruit.
Why is that? They're not really that sweet. Perhaps it's cos they're easy to peel and eat, and you don't need to wash them first.
Perhaps it's their shape Laughing

The supermarkets use them as their No 1 loss-leader (above even Heinz beans, Coke, milk and (white) granulated sugar. Their true cost should be more than double the current 68p/kg (so, effectively, non-banana-eaters like us are subsidising everybody else)
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nod



Joined: 24 Dec 2006
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 11:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

RockitRon wrote:
Yes, I don't know what it is about bananas either.
I like them, but I don't actually eat many - one a week, if they're lucky.
Son is like you, they make him feel sick (bananas and garden peas, oddly).
But they are apparently the nation's favourite fruit.
Why is that? They're not really that sweet. Perhaps it's cos they're easy to peel and eat, and you don't need to wash them first.
Perhaps it's their shape Laughing

The supermarkets use them as their No 1 loss-leader (above even Heinz beans, Coke, milk and (white) granulated sugar. Their true cost should be more than double the current 68p/kg (so, effectively, non-banana-eaters like us are subsidising everybody else)


"I like them, but I don't actually eat many - one a week, if they're lucky."

Do bananas get lucky ? Wink
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ruddlescat



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PostPosted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 7:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I called at Asda on my way home this evening and amongst other things bought 12 perfectly good bananas for ten pence - unbelievable Shocked
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 8:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ruddlescat wrote:
I called at Asda on my way home this evening and amongst other things bought 12 perfectly good bananas for ten pence - unbelievable Shocked


We're being farmed.
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R2Icon



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PostPosted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 9:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

nod wrote:
Do bananas get lucky ? Wink


You never know but I think there are luckier fruits and vegetables.

You know they ( who are they?) say, you should never put Bananas in the fridge? Yep, that's what they say.

Well, after last week's Banana disaster, this week, I put half the Bananas in the fridge and guess what? Yeah... nothing bad happened, in fact, the Bananas not in in the fridge all started to go that yucky brown colour after a few days in the fruit bowl. The ones in the fridge are as yellow as your hat- fresh as a daisy.

I think "they" might be wrong. Bananas are just fine dandy in the fridge and they last longer.
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