Disclaimer: the author knows nothing about biology or genetics. She is just concerned about the lack of bananas in the Columbia dining halls.

Has anyone else noticed the recent lack of bananas in the dining hall? For me, personally, the realization came when I got the flu last Sunday and I felt like I really should eat fruits but couldn’t stomach the acidity of apples or oranges, but couldn’t find any bananas in either of the two functioning Columbia dining halls. I’ve heard friends also bemoan the lack of bananas in the dining halls, and I know it’s not just in my flu-ridden head.

So why the sudden disappearance of bananas? Is it that Prezbo is triggered by the similarity in the shade of the fruit and the color of Donald Trump’s toupee? Are bananas being affected by Trump’s wall and the tariffs that he’s charging to pay for it? Is it somehow because of the abnormally warm winter we’ve had because climate change is real?

I think the real reason behind this is the Banana Disease. Bananas were genetically modified to be commercially appealing (i.e. no seeds, bigger, tastier, etc.) and all bananas sold for human consumption are genetically identical. This would be devastating in the case of disease, because there is no mutation that would allow for any bananas to survive said disease (which is the theory behind genetic mutation, and subsequently, evolution). When the JJ’s pipe burst, the Banana Disease was in the sewage that overspilled and spread upstairs to John Jay and then to Ferris. So all the bananas in the dining halls were affected, because they’re genetically identical.