banana experiment

[bjl584]

Inspired by another thread I decided to place an average banana on one of our scales here at work to see just how much one would save by pre-peeling a banana in the store.

Weight of an average banana = 0.435 lbs
Weight of an average banana without a peel = 0.285 lbs

The banana used in this experiment was purchased for .54 cents a pound.

So then:

cost of an average banana = 0.2349 cents
cost of an average banana without a peel = 0.1539 cents

So if you eat one banana per day, over the course of 1 year (365 days) we get:

Cost of one banana per day for a year = $85.7385
Cost of one banana per day for a year if you pre-peel the banana = $56.1735

Total savings for one year = $29.5650

So, is it worth it? Or are you just too cheap?

[disneysteve]

Is it worth it would depend on how desperate you are to cut costs, though it wouldn't change the morality or legality of doing it.

Personally, I like bananas but I definitely don't eat one per day. I may go weeks without having one. Plus, we only pay $.49/lb so the savings would be a bit less. If I ate one per week, I'd save $3.82/year using your calculations. So no, that wouldn't be worth it.

The other problem in my mind is that I wouldn't want pre-peeled bananas. If I peel it in the store, by the time I get home, it is going to be trash, and I certainly couldn't pre-peel more than one to possibly eat that day when I get home. I usually buy 4 or 5 bananas at a time. If I pre-peeled them, they wouldn't last until I used them.

I also wonder about ripeness. Bananas aren't ripe when you buy them usually. They sit on the counter for a few days until they ripen. Do bananas continue to ripen after you peel them? I honestly don't know.

So all around, I think this is an odd concept. It wouldn't really save any money. It is inappropriate if not illegal. And it would result in disgusting bananas.

[GrimJack]

If you love bananas, you should probably eat all you can in the next couple years. It appears that the Cavendish banana is being destroyed by a fungus that takes 9 months to 2 years from infestation to actually destroy the field. The fungus has wiped out all Cavendish bananas in Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Australia. The Cavendish is reproduced by cloning; trying to get seeds from the banana is nearly impossible - 400 tons of bananas were sieved and they found only about 13 seeds. If you have ever had a 'natural' banana, you probably know they are almost inedible since the seeds are about 50% of the whole. Australians have a pretty good banana but it does not travel - it need to be eaten pretty quickly after picking. As far I have found, there is no replacement variety that is immune to the fungus and available for mass marketing.

I agree with DS, buying skinless bananas is pointless - they would turn black and mushy withing minutes.

[disneysteve]

Most bananas sold here come from Costa Rica. I wonder if they have been affected by the fungus.

[bjl584]

Alarm in the banana plantation - Bayer CropScience

I found this article from Bayer. Apparently they are doing research on pesticides to combat the fungus. Costa Rica appears to be an area of concern.

[GrimJack]

The impression I get from my research (er, google), most of the banana fields in the world have been contaminated - the spores are hitchhikers, any item that has been in a contaminated field or that carried contaminated fruit is carrying spores. Imagine all the different transport container that move food around the world - heck, even workers' boots carry the stuff.

I think that they came up with the 2013 date is because of the up to 2 year 'incubation' period - the spores are already in the soil of all the worlds' fields (I just bummed myself out).

[kamilopolo]

lol I like bananas too