digenous to Asia it is now cultivated not only in the Orient, southern Europe and Africa, but in many parts of Central and South America, and in the tropical islands.

The plant bearing this fruit is herbaceous, and dies or is cut down after fruitage, and new stalks spring from the roots. It is a marvel of productiveness, so that it is estimated that a greater quantity of actual food can be grown on an acre planted with bananas than if planted with wheat, potatoes or any other foodbearing plants. The tree grows to the height of from 20 to 40

feet, and the immense bunches of fruit, weighing often 100 pounds, bear from one hundred to two hundred bananas. (Fig 46.)

In the propagation of the tree and for starting a new plantation, seeds are not used, for the fruit practically has none, but shoots cut from the old plants, and these sprout so rapidly that they come to full maturity in ten or twelve months. There are more than one hundred and fifty varieties known, some yellow and some red, but all used for food in the countries where they grow abundantly. For local consumption the fruit is cut before it is fully

ripe, but at a time when it is estimated that there is nutriment enough in the stem to supply the bananas until they have fully ripened. If the fruit is intended for shipment to some distance, it must be cut still earlier; in fact while the bananas appear to be very green.

One of the most important and valuable properties of this fruit is that it ripens well after being cut from the tree, so that it will bear shipment and long storage. Fruit steamers, capable of carrying 40,000 bunches of bananas on a single trip, and provided with facilities for cooling and ventilating, have been built especially for the banana trade. By this means the abundant crops of Central and South America and the West Indies are brought in good condition to the European and United States ports. (Fig. 47).

Composition

The composition of the banana as compared with some other foods is as follows:

Ripe bananas (edible portion)1. 73.10 1.87 0.63

These analyses show that the ripe banana compares favorably with the potato, as far as carbohydrates and protein are concerned. Both are deficient in fat. The analysis also shows that neither of these foods constitutes a well-balanced ration. He who attempts

person

to live on bananas alone would suffer in the same way as the who attempts to live only on potatoes. (See p. 154.) This fruit is, however, a food and should be used as such in the arrangement of the diet. It is not to be classed with such fruits as apples and oranges, although often appearing for dessert on the same plate with them.

A study of the carbohydrates of the ripe and unripe banana pulp1 shows

It appears then that the essential change that takes place during ripening is a change of the starch into soluble carbohydrates, which consist principally of cane and invert sugars and dextrins. Oxygen is necessary for the working of this process. There are also some tannin and mucilaginous substances in the green banana. There is little waste in the ripe banana, as 70 per cent. of the solids is edible, and most of the edible material is a sugar which is easily assimilated.

One reason why bananas have sometimes been found to be indigestible is probably because they have been picked too green and are eaten when imperfectly or unevenly ripened. They should be so ripe that none of the mucilaginous quality remains, and the odor that indicates the imperfectly ripened fruit should be absent. "The banana, especially when cut not torn from the stem, is one of the most perfectly sterilized packages of food that appears on the market."

1 J. A. C. Soc., Vol. 34, p. 1729.

Banana Flour

It is difficult to make a flour from most fruits, as they become sticky or horny on drying, but from certain selected varieties of the banana, and especially from the coarser variety known as the Plantain, at the right stage of ripeness, an excellent flour can be made. This is a fine powder somewhat granular in appearance, and has a yellowish color, and agreeable taste. Says Thompson,1 in discussing the dietetic qualities of this flour, "The finest banana flour called "bananose,” at the end of one and one-half hours of pancreatic digestion, was capable of developing twice as much sugar as the same quantity of oatmeal or farina, and approximately one and one-half times as much sugar as cornstarch. Saliva when substituted for pancreatic extract produces a similar effect. Banana flour is made into a thin gruel or porridge by the addition of either water or milk, and eaten with cream it constitutes a delicious and highly nutritious article of diet, suitable in cases of gastric irritability and acute gastritis, etc." Plantain meal, which is made by drying the inside of the unripe fruit, constitutes a staple food in many tropical countries.

36,993,095 bunches of bananas were brought into the ports of the United States in 1919. The European supply comes largely from African colonies.

BREAD FRUIT (Artocarpus communis)

The bread fruit is a native of the South Sea Islands, and is common in tropical countries. The fruit, which grows on a tree, is the size of a melon, and is as important a source of food to the inhabitants of these islands as are the cereals to those of Europe and America. (Fig. 48.) The bread fruit, according to E. Smith,2 contains 3 per cent. of albumin, 14 per cent. starch and 19 per cent. of gluten and woody fiber. It is roasted and used as a substitute for bread. A paste called "mahe" is made from the fruit 1 Loc. cit., p. 183.

2 Foods, p. 206.

and stored away for use during that part of the year (four months) when the fruit cannot be obtained from the tree. This paste ferments and has a disagreeable odor, but after baking it yields a

FIG. 48.-The bread fruit tree. (By permission World's Commercial Products.)

pleasant and nutritious food. Another and more common method of preserving the fruit is to cut it in thin slices and dry in the sun.

The fig, like the olive, has been cultivated in oriental countries from the earliest times. (Fig. 49.) The fig, the olive and the