Banana still holding its own among most popular fruits

• Despite the introduction of ever more exotic fruits, despite the widely touted health benefits of fresh berries and dried fruits, despite the availability of traditional summer fruits in deepest winter, bananas continue to win the public's popular vote.
• Year-round banana sales to food service customers are steady, reported Carl Mellone of Carl Mellone & Sons, a produce distributor in Hackensack.
• Exercise club clients are big banana customers, employing the nutritious fruit in health bar smoothies, he added.
• Though banned on many low-carb diets, bananas are a must among runners and bicyclists, who eat them after a race to replace lost vitamins and minerals.
• Containing about 110 calories, a medium banana has 33 percent of the vitamin B6, 16 percent of the fiber, 15 percent of the vitamin C, 13 percent of the potassium, 9 percent of the vitamin A and 8 percent of the magnesium we need each day.
• According to the Miami-based Turbana Corporation, a cooperative of about 100 banana growers in Colombia, "About 45 percent of people suffering from depression are found to have a low level of serotonin in the brain.
• Our sweet yellow banana is a mutant strain whose cultivation took off in the 19th century, when the hot new fruit sold for a whopping 10 cents apiece at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.
• Although there are about 400 varieties of bananas in the world, only about 20 are widely consumed, and one, the Cavendish, is what most of us think of when we say banana, regardless of the brand sticker on its outer peel.
• Ranging from about 6 to 7 inches in length, it's shorter than the Cavendish, and "it tastes a little bit like a cross between a Granny Smith apple and a banana," explained Jaramillo.