The Anonymous Widower

Bananas And Me

According to my mother, I didn’t see or taste a banana until I was seven.

That would have been 1954, which is when rationing ended.

The Wikipedia entry entitled Rationing In The UK is a valuable resource.

Bananas had been available since 1945, although they had not been imported during the war.

I had been born in 1947, with my sister born in 1950. As my paternal grandmother lived with us, we were a family of five.

So I suspect, that although they were available my mother didn’t buy them for some reason.

The Wikipedia entry has a section called Political Reaction, which talked about reaction to rationing after the war. This is said.

In the late 1940s, the Conservative Party utilised and encouraged growing public anger at rationing, scarcity, controls, austerity and government bureaucracy to rally middle-class supporters and build a political comeback that won the 1951 general election. Their appeal was especially effective to housewives, who faced more difficult shopping conditions after the war than during it.

My father had been politically active before World War II, but he was much more politically agnostic after the war, judging by some things he said to me. I can’t ever remember my mother saying anything political, although I can remember her saying something, which agreed with the last sentence of the Wikipedia extract.

I suspect she was under pressure from my grandmother, so perhaps she kept the shopping light because of rationing.

Anyway, I can remember her telling my wife that my face had been a picture when I saw and ate my first banana.

I’ve not stopped eating them since.

• I generally eat between one and three every day.
• I have problems with fruit that needs to be cut up because of my gammy left hand, so for pineapple, melon and mango, I usually buy them ready-cut in pots from Marks and Spencer.
• I also eat a lot of berries, when they are in season.

But, I never eat oranges, apples or pears, except in a processed form.

Bananas And My Family

As far, as I can check, I’m the only one of my family, who likes bananas and eats them regularly.

I have checked on two sons and my granddaughter and none seem to like them.

Could it be my mother’s denial of the fruit to me until rationing ended, gave me a love of the fruit?

Bananas And Coeliacs

This page on the Harvard University School of Public Health gives the nutrition facts about bananas.

This is the second paragraph.

The scientific name for banana is Musa, from the Musaceae family of flowering tropical plants, which distinctively showcases the banana fruit clustered at the top of the plant. The mild-tasting and disease-resistant Cavendish type is the main variety sold in the U.S. and Europe. Despite some negative attention, bananas are nutritious and may even carry the title of the first “superfood,” endorsed by the American Medical Association in the early 20th century as a health food for children and a treatment for celiac disease.

Now there’s a thing.

This page on the Gluten-Free Watchdog is entitled Early Dietary Treatment for Celiac Disease: The Banana Diet.

I’d never heard of this diet until yesterday.

Interestingly, a large banana contains 50 mg of vitamin B6 according to Dr. Google.

I take a B6 supplement and I wrote about the advice I received from a doctor at a respected medical university in Amsterdam in Vitamin B Complex for Coeliacs.

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November 27, 2022 Posted by AnonW | Food | Bananas, Marks and Spencer, My Family, Second World War, Vitamin B6 | 7 Comments