THE STORY OF THE BANANA. 
27 
111 older to maintain an even temperature against exterior weather 
conditions. The heating appliance is so designed that the products 
of combustion are conveyed to the exterior. A gravity system of 
ventilation constantly supplies fresh air and removes the vitiated air 
resulting from respiration of the bananas, which increases rapidly 
during the ripening period. 
Bananas treated in a room of this description not only develop the 
color, firmness, flavor, and food value requisite in the matured prod¬ 
uct of highest quality, but the losses which ordinarily occur through 
shrinkage by evaporation and through over-ripening and decay are 
minimized. 
HANDLING BY THE RETAILER. 
The retailer’s approved practice is to hang the bunches of bananas 
where they will be readily seen, but subject to as even a temperature 
as possible and to a circulation of fresh air. In winter due care is 
taken to protect the fruit from draughts of cold air, and the bunches 
are covered with paper bags or wrappings in case the temperature is 
low at night. In severing the bananas from the stem a specially 
designed banana knife is used to avoid tearing the skin and exposing 
the pulp. This point of retail service should be always insisted upon 
by the purchaser. 
FOOD VALUE OF THE BANANA. 
In food value and flavor the banana easily takes its place at the 
head of the list of raw fruits. Moreover, it surpasses most of 
the vegetables in energy value and in tissue building elements. It is 
one of the few fruits which reach the highest perfection in food value 
and flavor when harvested green and allowed to ripen after being 
severed from the tree or plant. It is always cut green, even when 
consumed locally in the tropics, for the reason that if allowed to ripen 
on the plant it loses its delicious flavor and becomes insipid. The 
banana reaches the hands of the consumer in a germ-proof package, 
sealed by nature herself. No worm, blight, or insect sting affects 
the fruit pulp, for its glove-like skin protects it from contamination 
of all kinds. It costs less per pound the year round than most of 
the common native vegetables or fruits . 4 
4 Prof. Samuel C. Prescott, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the foremost authorities 
in the United States on foods and their relative nutritive values, in 1917 wrote as follows: 
“The banana to-day provides more actual food for the same cost than any other fresh fruit or vegetable, 
or fish, meat, milk, or eggs. The combination of banana with milk in proper proportion, or its utilization 
as a vegetable to supplement a diet containing a small amount of meat will produce a ration which is ample 
to take care of the body needs. Meats are essentially protein foods and as such are more adapted to the 
development of tissue than to the quick production of heat, while the banana, on the other hand, is less a 
tissue-forming substance, but is comparably more effective in supplying the heat-giving materials. In 
a crude way we might say that the proteins are the foods which make good the losses due to wear and tear 
in the machinery of the body, while the carbohydrates are the foods which keep the machinery in motion 
and do work. From this standpoint it is seen therefore that the banana because of its higher carbohydrate 
content along with a certain amount of protein, would be a more useful all-round food than a pure meat 
diet in which the amount of carbohydrate is nil.” 
