FORBIDDEN FRUIT

Is there something wrong with eating fruit from Chile? I mean, aside from it offending the eat-locally-and-seasonally types and encouraging bad agricultural policies and wasting fuel and promoting unfair labor practices? I sure hope not because I was beside myself with glee when — tonight! in December! — I saw bags of bing cherries heaped in the produce aisle at Checkers. Wow. My absolute binge food. I can eat a shocking amount of these in no time. And for $3.48 a pound. They must suck, I thought. But no. I sneaked one, as I always do with cherries and grapes to avoid getting a sour bunch, and it was fantastic. Wine-dark, plump and sweet, with just the right amount of tang. Tonight! In December!

But, seriously, if anyone can tell me that's it really bad to eat them, I'll think long and hard about that after I consume the remaining pound in my fridge.

Shouldn't an extreme amount of happiness in my tummy offset at least a little bit of evil?

If you say no to that, OK, maybe you're right, but read this fascinating piece from the New York Times next time you're tempted to eat a banana, Mr. Greenjeans. Here's an excerpt:

That bananas have long been the cheapest fruit at the grocery store is astonishing. They’re grown thousands of miles away, they must be transported in cooled containers and even then they survive no more than two weeks after they’re cut off the tree. Apples, in contrast, are typically grown within a few hundred miles of the store and keep for months in a basket out in the garage. Yet apples traditionally have cost at least twice as much per pound as bananas.

Americans eat as many bananas as apples and oranges combined, which is especially amazing when you consider that not so long ago, bananas were virtually unknown here. They became a staple only after the men who in the late 19th century founded the United Fruit Company (today’s Chiquita) figured out how to get bananas to American tables quickly — by clearing rainforest in Latin America, building railroads and communication networks and inventing refrigeration techniques to control ripening. The banana barons also marketed their product in ways that had never occurred to farmers or grocers before, by offering discount coupons, writing jingles and placing bananas in schoolbooks and on picture postcards. They even hired doctors to convince mothers that bananas were good for children.