Bananas

A few years ago I saw a Youtube video which showed the correct way to open a banana.  It’s fair to say that it wasn’t exactly a life-affirming event, but it did shave a few seconds off the time it takes – those seconds add up and who knows, when I’m on my deathbed I might get to do that one extra thing because of all the banana time I’ve saved.  I eat a lot of bananas – I love bananas.  So much so, that when my wife bought a dehydrator so as to preserve summer berries to be used over the winter, when she was looking what else to dehydrate she came across bananas, their high content of potassium and how this can be concentrated through dehydration.  Potassium makes for great fertilizer and my banana skins are now being put to a better use than ending up in a landfill.

Bananas came up again this week when I read about a beekeeping myth that feeding bananas to your bees will aid them in overcoming any possible disease or parasite they encounter over the winter months: “…potassium in bananas will help the bees flex their wings, and the gases released from ripe bananas will kill pathogenic spores. A similar posting on Facebook claims bananas will kill Nosema, varroa, and chalkbrood, and a link on Twitter claims your bees will live up to nine times longer on a winter diet of bananas.”  Rusty, the blog author, went on to debunk the myth.  I’d never heard it before, but it never surprises me what some people, sometimes beekeepers for many decades, can believe the oddest theories.  Don’t get me started on lay lines.  The subject came up again when The Bush Bee Man did a Q+A a few days ago - he hadn't heard about bananas either (or rather using them on bees), so it's not just me.

I think the problem is that if we don’t understand something, we think up ever fanciful explanations to help the human mind understand why/how something is happening.  It’s the same with autism.  I’ve heard multiple theories as to the causes of autism (vaccines being the famous one) and multiple hypotheses as to how autism can be cured, or the symptoms of the condition reduced (from gluten free diets, to simply beating the autism out of them).  The truth is, if we care enough, we cling onto hope that someday an answer will be found and our children will turn neurotypical overnight.  Lorenzo’s parent found their oil, after all.

I’m all for research, and I know as many researchers in the field melittology as I do autism.  I’m happy to listen to your theories, but I won’t be buying a surfeit of bananas any time soon.