Ever hear someone who grew up in the 1930s or 40s wax poetic about the good old days?

Almost a decade ago I heard one of my grandfather's friends, a woman in her 80s, talking about how much better bananas used to be - sweeter, big, creamier - but little did I know that she wasn't romanticizing the past.

She grew up in the era of Big Mike, or Gros Michel, a devastated cultivar of banana wiped out in the Americas and much of the rest of the world by Panama Disease, thanks in part due to unsustainable growing practices making the spread of the disease common and resistance to the disease harder for the plants.

But Gros Michel is still grown all over Southeast Asia, as well on a small scale in Florida, parts of the Caribbean, and Africa.

I've wanted to track down Gros Michel since I became a raw foodist in 2005, and earlier this year I got my first taste.

I wrote up an article and made a video about tasting Big Mike, which you can find here: [www.raw-food-health.net]

Enjoy.

-Andrew

This was very interesting, Andrew. Thanks for posting

I am so glad to hear that other varieties of bannana haven't gone completely extinct. Other articles I have read seemed to indicate that. I thought that the quality was going down because of poor raising techniques, but species or varieties can make a difference.