My father remembers when bananas used to arrive only periodically. They would come off the boat in Saint John harbour and it would be an event. Now everyone expects bananas to be available everywhere, all the time. And they’d better be cheap.
Last winter I saw Chiquita bananas with a sticker that said “Guilt-free snacking”. I thought, Hooray! Chiquita has come a long way since it was known as the oppressive “United Fruit Company” Pablo Neruda wrote about. Then I thought, Wait a minute, this isn’t labelled Fairtrade.
Of course, “guilt-free” didn’t mean “no blood on your hands”, it meant “not detrimental to your well-being”. Far from guilt-free. Most supermarket bananas are the fruits of corporate malice. Buy bananas that really are guilt-free or do without.
Corporations on Trial: The Banana Murders
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