Banana.

• Autor(a) principal: BORGES, A. L.
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Outros Autores: SOUZA, L. da S., OLIVEIRA, A. M. G.
• Tipo de documento: Capítulo de livro
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da EMBRAPA (Repository Open Access to Scientific Information from EMBRAPA - Alice)
• Texto Completo: http://www.alice.cnptia.embrapa.br/alice/handle/doc/637931
• topic: Banana

The banana belongs to the family Musa and is grown in most tropical countries. It is an important food consumed world-wide and it can be eaten unripe or ripe, raw or processed (cooked, fried, roasted or processed). The fruit contains vitamins (A, B and C), minerals (calcium, potassium and iron) and has few calories (90 to 120 Kcal/100 g). The fruit is approximately 70% water; the solid material is principally carbohydrates (23 to 32 g/100 g) with little protein (1.0 to 1.3 g/100 g) and fat (0.37 to 0.48/100 g). In 2004, world banana production was approximately 73 million mt. The largest producer was India (23%), followed by Brazil (9%), then China and Ecuador (8% respectively). World production of plantains and bananas was 33 million mt. While the African continent, had the lowest production of plantains per unit area (5.72 mt/ha), it was nevertheless responsible for 70% of this total production. Major producing countries are Uganda (30% of the world production), Columbia (20%) and Rwanda (8%) (FAO, 2006).