If the banana was domesticated 7,000 years ago, does that mean they were as seedless back then?

The selection of the banana preceded any why. Maybe it coincided with "Oooooooohh!"

You can still breed from the Cavendish (the ubiquitous market banana) by seed but you have to mash a lot of fruit to find them. I wonder how many pounds of banana you have to smash on average to find one viable seed.

The banana is the atheist's nightmare.

Just goes to show how uneducated some of the people are.

There are plenty of different types of bananas in the world, and a quick search would have found many sites to disprove his theory.

https://specialtyproduce.com/produce/Seeded_Bananas_16736.php

I had a different version growing in my garden a few years ago but it got killed by the lazy neighbor spraying grass instead of cutting it. I got it from a research garden at one of the local banana export farms.
Even modern banana plants have flowers and can be cross pollinated, although I am not sure how much difference it would make. No one uses seeds any more because it is so much easier just to cut and replant the shots that continuously come out of the roots.

If the banana was domesticated 7,000 years ago, does that mean they were as seedless back then? — Nils Loc

No, just like wheat and corn they were mixed and match to get better fruit and ended up like the ones this guy buys in the supermarket.

No one uses seeds any more because it is so much easier just to cut and replant the shots that continuously come out of the roots. — Sir2u

Apparently the giant companies like Dole are eschewing new tech gene modification to try and get ahead of the new oncoming fusarium wilt problem (like what hit the Gro Michel with panama disease in 1950s). There is a Vice piece I think where they show workers collecting seeds from generally non-seeding cultivars to try and select fusarium resistant progeny. They were squashing a huge amount of fruit to find just a handful of seeds. Seems dumb but I guess these companies are afraid of the public perception of "GMO" bananas.

No, just like wheat and corn they were mixed and match to get better fruit and ended up like the ones this guy buys in the supermarket. — Sir2u

An interesting question then might be just how fast bananas became near sterile cultivars in the course of their domestication. Though folks still can use seedy fruit from wild types (probably also domesticated) as you've shown.

Even the bananas domesticated in the pacific by(?) seafaring polynesians are seedless. I don't think they carried seeding varieties with them but I could be wrong.

The banana rabbit hole...

Apparently the giant companies like Dole are eschewing new tech gene modification to try and get ahead of the new oncoming fusarium wilt problem (like what hit the Gro Michel with panama disease in 1950s). — Nils Loc

That is where I got mine. Yes they are used to make better products in the research farms, I think that the one I had came originally from Hawaii. That is where you mostly see them planting seeds because for production it is just too time consuming to use in production. But I think that even this will be slowly dying out as direct gene manipulation gets better.
One of the fascinating things about food plants is the way they spread around the globe. They can trace the genetic paths for many plants as they have traveled around the world with early explorers that have taken their version of a plant to another place and it has mixed with local varieties creating new versions. Most of the time these explorers looked for places to live that had similar climates, therefore in many cases had similar plants.

There is a great book called "The history of the potato" that is not at all as boring as it sounds.

I thought it was everything is goat. Did I miss some huge revelation?

I thought it was everything is goat. Did I miss some huge revelation? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

No, we've got the domestication list for the chef:

Banana (Goat)
Potato (Goat)
Goat


Fried plantains and stewed goat. Vodka. Enough to fuel any will to abstraction.

Fried plantains and stewed goat. — Nils Loc

Fried green bananas, cut thin, are good too. You can use them like chips with dip. Plantains should be left to ripen until they are almost black on the outside and then fried or toasted.

But you can keep the stewed goat thanks, never did like goat.
Stewed beef in coconut milk, with yucca, green plantain, white cabbage, served over rice is great though.
And anything to drink accept vodka and tequila.

Stewed beef in coconut milk, with yucca, green plantain, white cabbage, served over rice is great though. — Sir2u

Sounds very similar to a Thai curry, minus the manioc and plantain.

Never have tried a plantain or manioc (outside of tapioca dessert) but I'm guessing they are basically an unsweet starch with their own unique texture.

Sounds very similar to a Thai curry, minus the manioc and plantain.

Never have tried a plantain — Nils Loc

The way they make it here it is not hot like curry, you put your own chili on top if you want to.

Plantains are very similar to bananas in the variety of ways you can cook them. Both when green get used in soups and stew and can be fired to crispy chips. Bananas are mostly eaten raw when ripe, for some reason they do not fry or bake well as do plantains. Bananas usually have a sweeter taste to them that plantains when green but there is nothing nicer than a fried very ripe plantain.