Are bananas a staple in South India? puja (prayer) and celebration? Yes, people decorate temple entrances, weddings, and festivals with banana trees at their entrances, offer banana fruits to the gods, and use banana leaves as plates during meals (such as spoons or small bowls for liquids). there is no).
Eating rasam sadam on a banana leaf is an art. These days, you can buy “modern” banana plates at restaurants, but here the dried banana leaves are “stitched together” for convenience.
sacred fruit
Science writer J. Meenakshi writes for the BBC that banana trees are equated with Lord Brihaspati (Jupiter) of fertility and bounty. Bananas are therefore considered sacred.
Dr. KT Achaya, in his book, MeIndian Cuisine: Historical Friends (Oxford Univ. Press, 1994) mentions bananas in Buddhist literature from around 400 BC. He states that bananas were introduced by sea from New Guinea to South India. Some argue that bananas were first domesticated in New Guinea.
many varieties
Meenakshi found 12 to 15 varieties of bananas during his trip from Hyderabad to Nagercoil. These plants grow in warm, humid areas bordering the Western Ghats.
Given this, where are bananas grown in India? In northeastern regions such as Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
However, the central and northern regions (Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab) also cultivate this plant, but there are no such varieties or numbers.
India produces about 29 million tons of bananas annually, followed by China with 11 million tons. About 135 countries produce bananas, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and banana trees like warm, moist environments.
Especially in Southeast Asian countries, there are 300 kinds of bananas, and there are many plants that are beautiful to look at.
nutritional value
What is it that makes bananas delicious, sacred, medicinal and nutritious? nutritional value of indian food The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) notes that bananas contain 10-20 mg calcium, 36 mg sodium, 34 mg magnesium and 30-50 mg phosphorus per 100 g edible. All this makes bananas very nutritious.
A 2018 paper by Dr. K. Ashok Kumar and colleagues Journal of Pharmacognosy and Photochemistry We updated the nutritional value of banana varieties with similar results. Of all Indian fruits, bananas are the cheapest and available year-round, even in rural areas in most parts of India, while mangoes and oranges, most of which are seasonal, expensive and of low nutritional value. Worse than bananas.
And bananas are not just delicious and healthy fruits. Even its bark is used as a “biochar” that is used both as a fertilizer and for power generation. Efforts are underway to use it to drive electric vehicles.
