Americans love bananas — and the love affair is only growing more intense. Food journalist Luke Fortney explains, “America’s most-eaten fresh fruit is standing out with unusual and unexpected force, on cafe, bar and restaurant menus and on grocery store shelves across the country.”[1] Rob Smithson, a founder of Banagua, a banana water company, told Fortney, “It’s one of the last nonpolarizing foods in a polarizing world. Every demographic, every age group, every culture all over the world loves bananas.” Author Daniel Stone explains there’s just so much to love about bananas. He writes, “Banana splits. Banana bread. Plain old bananas. Sweet and easy to eat, the curved yellow fruit is among the most popular foods in the world.”[2] A group of research horticulturists notes, “Bananas rank as one of the top food crops and serve as a staple food for millions. This fruit holds major economic value, accounting for over 16% of global production and trade in fresh produce.”[3]

Going Bananas

According to researcher Alisa Mala, “[Bananas] were also among the first fruits ever domesticated, cultivated in the wetlands of the Kuk valley in highland New Guinea as far back as 8000 to 5000 BCE, then carried across Southeast Asia, eventually reaching the Philippines. India grows more than any other country today, close to a quarter of the global crop, followed by China and the Philippines.”[4] And Fortney reports, “More than 139 million metric tons of them are grown worldwide each year, making bananas the most-produced, most-consumed fresh fruit globally. They’re reliably predictable, tasting the same in schools, delis, airports and Walmart stores, where they are the most popular grocery item sold. And bananas are a foundational ingredient in vintage desserts like sundaes, puddings and flambéed Fosters.”

The wide appeal of bananas goes beyond taste. They are also good for your health. Bananas have around 400 milligrams of Potassium per 100 g of fresh fruit. Moreover, consuming a banana helps regulate human’s blood pressure and lower the risk of heart disease by up to 27%. Other than being high in potassium, bananas are also a source of Vitamin C and Vitamin B6. With an increasing number of people using GLP-1 weight loss drugs, a number of questions have been raised about whether or not users should eat them. Journalist Dana Meltzer Zepeda explains, “Many people assume bananas are best placed in the ‘avoid’ category, since they contain more carbs and natural sugars than some other fruits.”[5] She reports, however, “Bananas don’t deserve their bad rap.” Raksha Shah, a Registered Dietitian Nutrition Coach, told Zepeda, “The biggest misconceptions about including bananas in your daily diet is that they’re high in sugar and calories and are fattening.” But, Zepeda writes, “Bananas are considered nutritional powerhouses because they’re packed with essential nutrients and vitamins — and yes, they’re safe to eat in moderation while you’re on a GLP-1 such as Ozempic or Mounjaro.”

Bananas Going?

A century ago, Frank Silver and Irving Cohn wrote their famous lyrics, “Yes! We have no bananas.” The specter of having no bananas once again looms over the globe. A couple of years ago, journalist H. Claire Brown reported, “Two diseases threaten to wipe out the banana as we know it.”[6] This wouldn’t be the first time a variety of banana has gone extinct. Brown observed, “The bananas in grocery stores in the 1950s were a different variety from the bananas available today. They were called Gros Michels (often translated as Big Mikes), and crops were wiped out after a fungal disease called Tropical Race 1 (TR1) tore through plantations.” Today’s variety is called the Cavendish and, according to Brown, it represents 99% of the global banana export market.

Today, the Cavendish variety of banana is challenged by a new disease Journalist Laura Baisas explains, “A popular type of banana is facing extinction from a fungal pathogen. The disease Fusarium wilt of banana (FWB) blocks the flow of nutrients to the fruit and makes it wilt. … The crop failures are due to a fungal pathogen with a very long name — Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. Cubense (Foc) tropical race 4 (TR4). Abbreviated as Foc TR4.”[7] Brown pointed out why bananas are so susceptible to disease. She wrote, “The seedless bananas sold in supermarkets are especially vulnerable to disease because they are all clones of one another, and they are sterile. ‘Once you have one pathogen that is able to infect one plant, then basically it’s able to infect all similar plants,’ said Ioannis Stergiopoulos, associate professor of plant pathology at the University of California-Davis.”

The good news is that scientists are on the case and have promising leads. The bad news is that the disease-resistant bananas undergoing experimentation (called the Yelloway variety) aren’t ready for market. According to Brown, the bunches are uneven and the eating quality isn’t great. She reports an Australian research team has “developed a TR4-resistant genetically modified banana by inserting a gene from a wild banana plant into a Cavendish, and the fruit is expected to look and taste just like the original variety.” The problem, however, is that many people resist buying and eating genetically-modified foods.

Concluding Thoughts

Because bananas are so susceptible to disease, the battle to save and grow edible varieties is likely to be never-ending. Agriculture specialist Steven Savage observes, “The reason that bananas can be so affordable is that a finely tuned system has been worked out in which the bananas can be harvested at just the right stage, shipped inexpensively using ocean shipping (with a minimal carbon footprint), and then predictably ripened in facilities close to the points of sale throughout the world. The ‘back haul’ of other goods in those same ships is also key to the economics. There are other banana varieties out there, but they wouldn’t be reliably functional in that system or would require some expensive, carbon-intensive means of transport.”[8] He adds, “Soon, there will either have to be a replacement or replacements for the Cavendish or the lyric – ‘yes, we have no bananas’ will once again be relevant. Finding those solutions and proving their utility will be very challenging, but not just for the ‘banana of trade.’ There are also major agricultural communities that are being impacted by this new Fusarium strain as they grow plantains and cooking bananas for local consumption and for another significant export market for those crops. This isn’t just a ‘rich world problem’.”

Despite all the challenges, Savage is hopeful. “The bottom line is that there is reason to be hopeful for the future of bananas and the best case is that science and reason prevail in the realm of consumer education and marketing.” Let’s hope his optimism is justified — or we could all go bananas!

Footnotes

[1] Luke Fortney, “Everything’s Bananas,” The New York Times, 8 July 2026.

[2] Daniel Stone, “Imagining the Future of the Banana,” National Geographic Society, 1 October 2024.

[3] Hongxia Miao, Jianbin Zhang, Yunke Zheng, Caihong Jia, Yulin Hu, Jingyi Wang, Jing Zhang, Peiguang Sun, Zhiqiang Jin, Yongfeng Zhou, Sijun Zheng, Wei Wang, Mathieu Rouard, Jianghui Xie, and Juhua Liu, “Shaping the future of bananas: advancing genetic trait regulation and breeding in the postgenomics era,” Horticulture Research, 12 February 2025.

[4] Alisa Mala, “Most Popular Fruits In The World,” WorldAtlas, 3 June 2026.

[5] Dana Meltzer Zepeda, “Can I Eat Bananas on a GLP-1?” Lose It!, 17 April 2026.

[6] H. Claire Brown, “Scientists See Hope in Race to Save the Banana,” The Wall Street Journal, 10 October 2024.

[7] Laura Baisas, “Bananas are at risk of extinction, but scientists have a plan,” Popular Science, 16 August 2024.

[8] Steven Savage, “Strategies To Save The Global Banana Industry,” Forbes, 16 April 2024.