My Food, My Way 3 forces. In part II of this book, we’ll cover in more detail the five pri-
mary forces that together set the course of the modern food system.
The evening of our day trip to the banana plantation, my uncles and I
sat down for a dinner that included plantains, another member of the
banana family. Their familiar shape and size provided the perfect segue
for me to ask what stood out from the earlier visit. Both of my uncles
had been farmers, remembered when food was rationed during World
War II, and served in the Merchant Marines and the Army.
The ready availability of bananas in the store, they remarked, did
not capture how systems change everything. For a few hours they
had experienced a region that provided fruit that Americans took for
granted. They had seen how people’s lives revolved around a single
crop and how low prices did not address environmental and individual
health risks. Accustomed to eating bananas without giving much
thought as to why each one looked and tasted the same, they had never
considered what happens when nature fails to produce the perfect fruit.
Since then, one uncle has passed away and the other turned ninety.
In celebration, my wife and I traveled to Seattle to visit. If average
consumption patterns are a reliable guide, he was closing in on twenty-
three thousand bananas. Age had limited his mobility, but not his
mind. So I asked if he still remembered visiting the banana plantation
in Costa Rica. “Very much so,” was his response. When I inquired if
he still looked at bananas differently, without hesitation he replied, “I
still do.”