If you want to eat a clean and natural diet but actually want to have some energy too, then bananas are an extremely underrated and practical food.
Firstly, they’re one of cleanest carbohydrate sources you can eat. Secondly, bananas have numerous minerals like magnesium and potassium, bonus compounds like rutin, and even a little helping of serotonin.
They’re also nature’s very own portable snack, meaning that you can take them up a mountain, to the beach, or even the cheese-filled plains of the moon without breaking your diet. But do you need to buy bananas organically?
There are several schools of thought. Firstly, there’s the chemical companies, who insist that conventional bananas are fun for the whole family, with wholesome chemicals that increase agricultural production, give South American workers jobs, are completely tested and safe, etc, etc, etc.
Secondly, there’s the average Western family, who occasionally gets concerned about pesticide abuse, only to forget just as quickly.
Then there’s the organic-aware people, including vegan and paleo crowds, who believe that many conventional fruits are toxic but that bananas are safe because of their protective skin. The skin defense theory is easily one of the most common.
Finally, there’s the organic diehards who mistrust everything and want humans to roam the wild on all fours. Who has the right idea?
Bananas – an underestimated pesticide food
The cold hard reality is that while bananas are nowhere near as pesticide-covered as the average apple, it’s still smart to buy the organic version as a precaution.
Bananas face an extremely high amount of pests, and consequently, are blasted with a high amount of pesticides. Most importantly, over 90% of banana crops come from developing countries, where the agricultural practises are often incredibly shoddy.
Instead of carefully applying the pesticides, aeroplanes fly through the sky and drop mists of chemicals, so haphazardly that they engulf nearby villages. Agrochemicals which are banned in the EU are used openly on bananas which are then sold on to EU supermarkets.
The clearest evidence is the banana farm workers themselves, who are developing cancer, fertility problems and organic failure in their thousands. Since 2000, banana companies have been bombarded by lawsuits from all directions.
Banana farmers are commonly illiterate, and get sold banned pesticides without realising. Like cocoa farmers, some apply way too many chemicals because they lack the proper education.
At the grocery store, you could easily buy a conventional banana with one or two relatively safe chemicals, but it’s a minefield; you could also easily buy a shady Ecuadorian banana laced with illegal cancer-causing chemicals.
Bananas also have two very specific factors which makes them pesticide-intensive. Firstly, the vast majority of bananas worldwide come from the Cavendish subspecies (even though there’s actually 1000 different subspecies), as the Gros Michael which reigned supreme until 1960 was felled by disease. The cavendish bananas today are all genetically identical, coming from one original specimen. The problem is therefore that breeding a new pest-resistant variety is now impossible.
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Secondly, most farmers keep their bananas in a massive monoculture, never rotating them with other crops. This drains the soil of nutrients and weakens the banana tree’s own defences, and allows insects and fungi to establish themselves over numerous years.
The result is a pesticide free-for-all. Bananas might have skin, but the chemicals can still penetrate into the flesh beneath. Furthermore, the roots absorb pesticides in the soil, making the chemicals systematic inside the plant.
Like with coffee, developing country farmers need to boost their economy and safety measures are usually completely ignored. In some countries like Ecuador and Costa Rica, bananas are the single biggest exports, and if toxic paraquat is the secret ingredient needed, then toxic paraquat is what will be used.
Banana pesticides are so common that even crocodiles near the farms are becoming weaker and less healthy. Redeeming features include the skin, which undoubtedly keeps away pesticides compared to strawberries. Also, the single most common banana pesticide is one of the safest in existence (according to current evidence). A handful of the deadliest chemicals have been banished to the black market.
However, in other countries, the banana industry has pushed back relentlessly. A classic example was the Philippines, where villagers rejoiced in 2007 as the aerial spraying of pesticides was banned, only for the supreme court to overturn the law only three years ago (2016).
One advantage is that the organic banana market is growing exponentially, particularly in Peru and the Dominican Republic. However, this isn’t spilling over into conventional bananas. Financially, the only motivation to restrict the abuse of chemicals is to exploit the organic market.
Make no mistake, the average banana farm in the third world is chemical city.
The Rainforest Alliance – not a safety guarantee
Theoretically, non-organic bananas are kept in check by the Rainforest Alliance, a nonprofit organisation which tries to encourage safe agricultural practises.
But look at this 2011 study, which examined 16 banana farms in Latin America. They concluded that RA certified banana farms had far less insect diversity than organic farms, and even slightly less than standard non-organic farms. The reason? Probably because they were all killed by insecticides!
The problem is that the Rainforest Alliance only responds when specific complaints are made, which economically-minded banana farmers will do everything they can to avoid. The alliance has no power to randomly investigate farms. In Ecuador, for example, the Rainforest Alliance only investigated 3 out of 168 registered farms, 1 of which didn’t comply.
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The study above reached this conclusion: “organic farming conserves biodiversity, while alternative environmental labels (e.g. a Rainforest alliance seal) may not have any visible positive effect on in-farm biodiversity“.
Basically, organic is the real deal, everything else is a mickey mouse measure. If the Rainforest Alliance is so effective, then why are their bananas so cheap? Cutting down on chemicals will always increase costs – it’s inevitable.
The chemicals – some gentle, some deadly
If you look at whatsonmyfood.com, the most accessible website for instantly checking the pesticide levels of common foods, bananas are much safer than strawberries, apples, or grapes.
Only four chemicals were found on 10% of bananas or more: thiabendazole (48.1%), imazalil (32.7%), azoxystrobin (24.2%), and myclobutanil (12.9%). On the annual dirty dozen list, bananas never feature. However, that doesn’t mean that banned frankenchemicals aren’t lurking in the aisles of your local supermarket. Here are some notable banana chemicals:
Thiabendazole – the top banana chemical. A fungicide and parasiticide which is also used on citrus fruits. Thiabendazole is applied to bananas after harvesting.
Thiabendazole is legal in almost every country, but its higher dose side effects include dizziness and nausea. One worrying feature is that thiabendazole penetrates 4 times deeper into fruits than some chemicals, piercing the banana’s defences. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hasn’t conducted a complete review of this chemical, but the normally much stricter EU has deemed it to be safe.
Thiabendazole has no seriously worrying studies to its name; there’s no contest between this chemical and the likes of atrazine. Dodgy but not disqualifying.
Imazalil – the same cannot be said for imazalil. The second most common banana chemical is a fungicide, designed to wipe out the crown rot infection.
The problem is that imazalil is an xenoestrogen, with anti-androgenic properties that could wreak havoc when accumulated (study). These properties are similar to the feared BPA, or the frog-feminising atrazine. The World Health Organisation says that imazalil is a likely carcinogen in humans, and moderately toxic.
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Azoxystrobin – a synthetic imitation of a natural fungicide found in two obscure mushrooms, which nature lovers realised were astonishingly resistant to infection.
Azoxystrobin is designed to be absorbed through the banana tree’s roots, where its spreads to the leaves and becomes systemic. This chemical was found to have no hormonal activity, and has no particularly worrying studies, although it is toxic to all animals in very high doses. Legal almost everywhere.
Myclobutanil – another dodgy chemical, which is most famously used for growing cannabis plants, but bogged down by controversy over studies where it lowered babies’ birthweights and worsened non-alcohol fatty liver disease.
For bananas, myclobutanil is again used to prevent fungi like crown rot. The fruit are dunked in the chemical after harvest, and according to one study conducted over 28 days, the longer the bananas are left for, the more the myclobutanil soaks into the inner fruit. Myclobutanil is banned in Canada and Colorado for growing cannabis.
The biggest problem – banned pesticides which refuse to die
Paraquat – this pesticide is illegal, yet still pops up on banana farms all over the world. Paraquat is a herbicide, designed to wipe out pesky weeds on banana farms. Its claim to fame is causing Parkinson’s disease via massive generation of free radicals. If you get paraquat on your shirt, you have to slash that shirt off with a knife rather than taking it off normally.
Switzerland banned paraquat in 1989, Denmark banned paraquat in 1994, and the whole EU banned paraquat in 2007. Even China is phasing out paraquat, but nevertheless, paraquat has recently been spotted on banana farms in Ecuador, the Philippines, and Laos, where it is sneakily imported from Thailand.
In Laos, the workers seemed clueless about its dangers; one left a bottle of paraquat on his kitchen stove while another was seen bathing his child next to a vat of paraquat. The prospects for their bananas = bleak.
Carbofuran – another illegal pesticide, this time popular on Filipino banana plantations. Carbofuran is an insecticide which is very skillful at eliminating aphids. The problem is that carbofuran is also skillful at disrupting your hormones and increasing inflammation.
Carbofuran is banned on US food crops and totally banned in the EU. Even more interestingly, carbofuran is designed to be absorbed through the plant’s roots, although it’s claimed that none of the chemical enters the fruit itself, just the leaves.
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A huge problem for New Zealanders, since the Philippines are where 75% of your bananas come from (economic close proximity is the main reason). A member of the deadly carbamate class of pesticides, which are falling to bans like dominoes.
Dieldrin – banned in the USA since 1985. Banned worldwide by the Stockholm Convention in 2011, yet dieldrin still pops up on farms in Costa Rica and Honduras. One study found that crocodiles living near Costa Rican banana farms had blood which was rich in dieldrin, along with six other globally banned pesticides, including 4,4′-DDE and oxychlordane.
This chemical is a powerful insecticide, but is linked to weak immune systems, cancer, and birth defects, to name a selection. Dieldrin also accumulates in soils, meaning that the more developing countries abuse it, the more conventional bananas are at risk. Several other organochloride pesticides are known to accumulate too. Because of its high effectiveness, dieldrin was one of the bestselling US pesticides between 1950 and 1974, and that’s why banana-growing countries continue to exploit it.
The four main banana pesticides score 50%. Two which are suspicious yet possibly manageable, but two others which I’d definitely recommend that you avoid.
What really tilts bananas into dangerous territory is the numerous potential banned chemicals. You’re effectively playing Russian roulette every time you buy a bag.
One week your bananas could be fine, the next week they could be sprinkled with 4,4′-DDE. It’s impossible to inspect every remote rainforest farm in the world. The problem for acne is that chemicals with severe health effects almost always seem to be pro-inflammatory or deplete antioxidants as well, both of which are fast ways to rob your skin of life.
A day in the life of banana land
The single best way to understand the banana-pesticide situation is to look at Ecuador. This Latin American land is the world’s number 1 banana exporter. Of its 16 million citizens, 2 million have jobs which are somehow connected to the banana industry. The banana industry is second only to oil in this country.
In 2017, analysis revealed that 26 agrochemicals (pesticides, insecticides, etc) are currently in use in Ecuador. 18 are banned in Denmark and 7 are banned in the whole of the EU. Some illegal or restricted Ecuadorian pesticides include carbendazim, flusilazole, tridemorph, paraquat, erbufos, cadusafos and chlorpyrifos.
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Like in the Philippines, the pesticides are sprayed by crop dusters which fly over fields. Recently, the number of yearly crop dustings in Ecuador has risen from 22 to 45 per field, nearly once per week. The planes fly in a circular pattern over the fields, which easily allows the gases to spread to nearby villages. A chemical called mancozeb was found over 1 mile away from a nearby banana plantation in one survey.
Consequently, statistics show that the banana regions of Ecuador easily have the highest levels of birth defects. Handicapped children are everywhere; children who were born with tiny kidneys, impaired IQs, and bodies the size of a five year old by the time they reach age 10.
Consider this: the birth defect rate in Ecuador’s banana regions is estimated at 2.58%, while the national birth defect rate is just 0.22%. If you excluded the banana regions then the national rate would be even lower.
Even the pilots themselves are developing blurred vision, dizziness, and eventually fertility problems. One pilot claimed that he was ordered to drop chemicals close to a house where two little girls were playing, only to swerve away at the last minute, like an epic scene from a film.
Farmers are often lied to; one was told by the banana company that he could drink a gallon of mancozeb without problems. The official policy is that banana farmers should take a nice, clean 1 day break after applying pesticides, but in Ecuador, most farmers are working again the next morning. Many banana farmers live in shabby huts right next to their fields.
Additionally, Ecuadorian pilots never spray just one pesticide at a time. It’s always a cocktail of chemicals which could have unknown, synergistic dangers when mixed together. Mortality rates of Ecuadorian banana farmers are 25% higher than average, and for crop dusting pilots, the figure is 40%.
There are two points to make. Firstly, it’s horrible for the farmers themselves, and secondly, it just shows the mayhem, the pesticide free-for-all which has consumed Ecuador, which will inevitably carry through to their banana quality.
Instead of protective suits, many banana farmers just wear jeans and T-shirts, even if they realise that they face a slow and certain death. In 2002, a report found that children as young as eight were working on Ecuadorian banana farms in a twisted saga of child labour. For the last two decades, more than 1000 banana workers have been suing the Dole Food Co., alleging that misuse of the DBCP pesticide left them infertile.
Considering those facts, what are the chances that Ecuadorian banana companies take the utmost care to apply pesticides in the safe dosages, just to protect the health of random Americans or Europeans?
When the four main Danish supermarkets were contacted, two (Lidl and Aldi) refused to reveal how many Ecuadorian bananas they import. Coop and Dragofa, meanwhile, admitted to importing about 1% of their total banana supply from Ecuador. The USA is a much bigger importer overall.
Here are a few more statistics: the national rate of cancer in Ecuador is 2.4%, compared to 13.4% in Ecuadorian banana territory. The national rate of mentally handicapped children is 0.17%, compared to 0.33% in El Oro province (banana land).
Bananas almost never appear in the annual dirty dozen list. The scientific analyses tend to be very reassuring. Nevertheless, the story of Ecuador is why I almost never eat non-organic bananas.
Does the skin defend bananas from pesticides?
The most concrete piece of evidence we have is this 2009 study. Bananas from Canary Island farms were analysed for multiple pesticides. One was the toxic chlorpyrifos, and while the levels on the banana skin were up to 0.87mg/kg, the pulp contained just 0.07-0.12mg/kg.
Clearly, the skin does offer protection, but there are also several wildcards, completely unpredictable and mysterious factors. Firstly, the insecticide thiabendazole is known to penetrate four times deeper into soft fruits than the apple tree pesticide phosmet. What if imazalil, paraquat, dieldrin other widely abused banana pesticides have the exact same power? All we know is that chlorpyrifos, one specific pesticide, struggles to enter the flesh.
Then there’s the question of storage. Mancozeb, the fourth ranked banana pesticide, burrows its way deeper and deeper into banana flesh the longer the bananas are stored for, continuing for 28 days. Could other pesticides be even faster?
There’s plenty of opportunity too, because most bananas are hauled across the ocean by giant boats for 5-7 days, sitting in strictly temperature-controlled rooms of 13C -18C. Afterwards, they’re slowly transported to supermarkets by lorries, followed by days of sitting on the shelves, ending with a couple of days in your fruit bowl.
That isn’t even counting the packaging in the origin country, or the long sunny days of bananas hanging from their trees after crop dusters douse them with the very first pesticide mists. A banana skin isn’t a 15th century suit of armour, it’s just a biological organism.
Then there’s the possible synergistic effects of multiple pesticides being used together, the possibility that the combinations might generate byproducts which scientists cannot identify. In fact, there could be many factors which we haven’t thought of. Remember that most pesticides have only been invented in the last 75 years.
One thing which isn’t any different is the taste, according to this study, where participants eating both conventional and organic bananas couldn’t tell the difference. Personally, I’ve only ever noticed a subtle difference at best. Organic bananas are slightly more nutritious, with more magnesium according to one small study, but strawberries have a much juicier advantage.
Conclusion
For all those reasons, if you have any access to organic bananas, I strongly recommend that you buy them.
A conventional banana is undoubtedly healthier than a conventional apple, but there’s still way too much pesticide mayhem going on. The skin defence is weak at best.
Importantly, organic bananas are easily one of the cheapest organic foods. For example, in Tesco, the UK’s most powerful supermarket chain, a 5-pack of conventional bananas averages at 18p per banana, whereas a 6-pack of organic bananas averages at just 23p per banana.
Organic banana farmers have invented all sorts of natural techniques; mulch to prevent banana weevils from laying eggs, resistant varieties to protect against nematodes, and ruthlessly burning any infected leaves.
With a lucky roll of the dice, some bananas might be acceptable, but if you want to crack down on pesticides once and for all, buy organic bananas.
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Thanks for reading!