There are more than 1,000 varieties of banana, and we eat one of them. Here's why that's absurd

The meeting of the World Banana Forum last week in Rome didn't make many headlines. But what was under discussion there has serious implications for everyone. The ubiquitous yellow fruit is the proverbial canary in the mine of our modern food system, showing just how fragile it is. And the current plight of the banana should serve as an invitation to us all to become champions of food diversity. When you peel a banana, you're on the receiving end of a near-miraculous $10bn supply chain. One that sends seemingly endless quantities of a tropical fruit halfway across the world to…