Why Banana Candy Doesn't Taste Like Bananas - The Story of Big Mike Bananas

Have you ever wondered why banana-flavored candy doesn’t actually taste like bananas?

If you’ve ever unwrapped a piece of yellow Laffy Taffy or crunched into a banana Runt, you’ve tasted a bright, chemical sweetness that seems to have nothing in common with the mild, creamy fruit sitting on your kitchen counter. For years, people have dismissed this as "fake" flavoring. But here is the strange truth: that candy isn’t lying to you. It tastes exactly like a banana—just not the one you know.

In this episode, we are peeling back the skin on the fascinating and tragic story of the Gros Michel, also known as "Big Mike."

For the first half of the 20th century, the Gros Michel was the only banana that mattered. It was the undisputed king of the fruit world: larger, sweeter, and significantly more flavorful than the bananas we eat today. It was a global superstar that built empires and toppled governments. But it had a fatal flaw. Because every single Gros Michel was a genetic clone of the other, they were all susceptible to the exact same biological weapon.

Enter Panama Disease.

We track the invisible fungus that began in Central America and tore through plantations with terrifying speed, threatening to wipe the banana off the face of the earth entirely. You’ll hear about the frantic race against time by scientists and fruit corporations to find a survivor, and how we eventually settled for the Cavendish—the bland, thick-skinned survivor that lines our supermarket shelves today.

But this isn't just a history lesson. It is a warning.

The Cavendish, the "safety banana" we rely on today, is currently facing a new strain of that very same fungus (Tropical Race 4). We explore the dangerous economics of monocultures, the science of extinction, and whether the banana as we know it is doomed to disappear all over again.

Join us for a tale of corporate greed, biological warfare, and the ghost flavor that haunts the candy aisle.

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