bananas

Bananas
I’m going to do my lecture about bananas. First I didn’t know what I had to talk about. I was thinking about something really silly. Then I thought about bananas. I decided to take bananas as subject. When I’m looking back it was a good decision. There’s a lot to tell about bananas and it is a funny subject. 

A banana is an oblong, light curved fruit. The Banana that we, in Europe eat, is usually about 20 cm long and yellow. There’re a lot of different kinds of bananas like: Red bananas, golden bananas, baby bananas, apple bananas and fry bananas. Every year people eat about 130.000 kilograms of bananas. The people in India eat the half of that amount of bananas. 
Bananas originate from the banana tree. The banana tree grows especially in the countries around the equator like: Central-America, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Surinam, Ecuador, Colombia, Africa, the Ivory Coast and Cameroon. A banana tree is actually a spice. That’s why a banana is biologically also seen as a spice. But in the horticulture the banana is called a vegetable and the culinary definition of a banana is fruit. The bananas grow in a raceme. Sometimes the weight of the raceme is about 50 kilograms. Al the bananas of one raceme are at the same time ripe and they’re not really long maintainable. That’s why bananas are being exported when they’re not yet ripe, in racemes of about 18 kilograms. The bananas have to be loaded in cooled ships in 48 hours and they must be brought to Europe in 4 weeks. The main export-countries of the bananas are: Ecuador, Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, Colombia, Guatemala and the Philippines. 
During the ripening of the banana, the starch in the banana is being turned into sugar. In a banana that’s not ripe, the number of starch is 20 times as big as the number of the sugar. That is reversed at the end of the maturation, that’s why the banana is going to taste sweet. 
Under the banana raceme grows a flower. That flower is edible. The flower is called: the banana flower. The people in Asia eat this flower raw. The flower has a light, sweet taste.
The shape of a banana is a curve, because the raceme hangs down because of the gravity, but the bananas are growing upwards. The people called this phenomenon: geotropic. Geotropic means that the growth of plants is being influenced by the gravity. Some people think that when bananas are growing curved, it’s because bananas are growing to the light. 

But that’s not the reason. 
When bananas are part of an Indian dinner, people cal them Pisang. That’s the Malaysian word for fruit. There’re also alcoholic drinks with bananas. These drinks have a green colour and are called: Pisang Ambon. There are also chips witch are made of bananas: banana chips. 
An average banana weighs about 150 grams. 100 gram of a banana contains: between the 90 and the 110 kilos calories, 20 to 25 grams of carbohydrates, 1,2 grams protein, 0,2 gram fat (the half of that is saturate) and 0,4 gram fibre. Bananas contain a lot of kinds of vitamins and minerals like: vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin C and Potassium. 
There are a lot of different kinds of makes of bananas. A couple of examples, with their descents are: -Banacol: import from Colombia, -Banagior: import from Venezuela, -Bonita: import from Ecuador, -Cobana: import from Ecuador, -Dole: import from countries like Cameroon and Ivory Coast, - Fyffes: import from countries like Honduras, Suriname en Jamaica,
-Turbana: import from Colombia and probably the most famous make: Chiquita: import from countries like: Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia and Ecuador. 
I have a little verse about bananas as termination. 
You were lying there so alone. You were the only banana, between the apples and the pears. The nectarines, the peaches and the grapes. But the most respect I have for you! So beautiful, yellow, curved and with your brown spots. If I eat you, you’re gone. Every day I miss you more and more. And when I crap you out, I think every time again. You are so ugly! But you were a big relief.