Of all the varieties of bananas, the one that I can’t surely swallow, or I’ll choke to death, is the Cavendish.

Cavendish bananas are nothing but deadly chemicals. The six to twelve inches long spotless and beautiful bananas, that always made Japanese children drool over, are genetically engineered.

From the moment of conception--when scientists work on with some tissues in Petri dishes and test tubes that we later see as full-grown banana shrubs, synthetic chemicals are already actively working.

Because bananas are pest-prone, growers and multinational owners of banana plantation resort to using chemicals. In the Philippines, the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) are using at least 22 different kinds of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides just to come up with export-quality products.

Included in the list are mancozeb-containing fungicides which are widely used by banana plantations against Sigatoka, a fungus that attacks the leaves of the bananas.

Mancozeb belongs to the ethylene bisdithiocarbonate (EBDC) group of pesticides which are converted into thylene thiourea (ETU). The ETU, on the other hand, is a known-cancer causing chemical. Thus, it is listed in the California’s office of Health Hazard assessment under proposition 65 or chemicals listed as probable carcinogens.

The ETU is an acknowledged thyroid toxin and also known to cause birth defects and tumors. It is not registered or approved in Chad, Gambia, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria. It is also restricted in Sweden and banned in Libya.

For more than 40 years now in use as aerial spray, mancozeb has, likewise, been listed by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) as toxic to humans and aquatic organisms.

Also being used is Gramoxone, a chemical that contains paraquat—a highly toxic synthetic chemical used as a plant killer or herbicide. Used in 131 countries all around the world, mostly the developing ones, chemicals with paraquat are classified by the World Health Organization as highly hazardous

The Malaysian government, however, banned paraquat last year after many incidents of poisoning and death among plantation workers.

But because of the weak enforcement of laws on deadly chemicals, Gramoxone is still being used in the Philippines today.

Even the fertilizers being used are all synthetic chemical-based. This only goes to show that Cavendish bananas are laced with poison.

By now, perhaps we already have an idea on how to kill a Japanese.