A century ago, only a handful of tropical fruits were available to Europe and North America, and they were luxuries Nowadays the banana is a common breakfast food and new fruits appear in the market every year Here are the most familiar Banana and Plantain Thanks to their productivity and starchy nutritiousness, bananas and plantains top the roster of world fruit production and trade The worldwide annual per capita consumption is almost 30 lb/14 kg, and in regions where they’re a staple food, individuals consume several hundred kilograms per year Bananas and plantains are the seedless berries of a tree-sized herb related to the grasses, Musa sapientum, which originated in the tropics of Southeast Asia A banana plant produces a single flower structure with from to 20 “hands” or fruit clusters, as many as 300 “fingers” of individual fruit, each fruit weighing from a couple of ounces to lb/50–900 gm The characteristic curve of long fruits develops because the fruit tip grows upward, against the downward pull of gravity Bananas and plantains are climacteric fruits, store their energy as starch, and convert some or most of that starch to sugar during ripening In the dramatic case of the banana, a starch-to-sugar ratio of 25 to 1 in the mature but unripe fruit becomes 1 to 20 in the ripe fruit The terms banana and plantain are used for two broad and overlapping categories for the many varieties of these fruits Bananas are generally sweet dessert varieties, and plantains are starchy cooking varieties Bananas are very sweet when ripe, their nearly 20% sugar content exceeded only by dates and jujubes, while ripe plantains may be only 6% sugar and 25% starch Both are picked green and ripened in storage, and are very perishable once ripe thanks to their active metabolism Bananas develop a meltingly smooth ... fruits, store their energy as starch, and convert some or most of that starch to sugar during ripening In the dramatic case of the banana, a starch-to-sugar ratio of 25 to 1 in the mature but unripe fruit...couple of ounces to lb/50–900 gm The characteristic curve of long fruits develops because the fruit tip grows upward, against the downward pull of gravity Bananas and plantains are... becomes 1 to 20 in the ripe fruit The terms banana and plantain are used for two broad and overlapping categories for the many varieties of these fruits Bananas are generally sweet dessert varieties, and plantains are starchy cooking varieties