Talk:Plantain/Archive 1

Must be cooked?
I need to know *why* plantains "must" be cooked. I met someone who has been eating plantains raw for a long time, with no apparent ill effect; therefore I suspect the instruction to be an old wives' tale. If anyone has more success finding out the truth about uncooked plantains, it would be a valuable addition to the WIKI article.


 * For archival reasons, I read that one person described it like eating green apples and will make you sick as if you ate green apples, the biology I dont know. It would be a good idea, except even google cant find me why you dont eat plantains.Patcat88 21:38, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * That's a logical fallacy, based on a demonstrably false premise. Eating green apples won't make you sick. That itself is nonsense. 71.161.198.124 (talk) 01:42, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

.
 * I dont think anybody will get sick if you take raw plantains, We mostly take it uncooked. One thing, the plantains one get in US dont taste good as raw, But the raw plantains from India are much sweet than banana, and if cooked it will be more sweeter. Bijee 00:08, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Speaking for plantains grown in the Caribbean region, they can be consumed either green or ripe. The same as bananas, when it's green it has a high content of starch and it is hard to bite into. The high starch content may have some unpleasant effects on the stomach and may even cause stomach aches if a large enough quantity is eaten raw. The starchy taste is not very appealing, it is hard to peal and the gluey sap on the peal will stain the skin. That is why it is recommended to boil it when it is green. As the plantain starts to ripen the starch turns into sugar and the fruit softens, the skin dries and thins out turning yellow and black making it easy to peal it; the same as ripe bananas the fruit tastes sweet although you may still detect the taste of starch depending on how ripe it is. There is no problem eating ripe plantains raw; unless you exceed yourself. Eating to many ripe plantains will have the same effect as eating too many ripe bananas. Frankrf 20:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Genus/species?
Why is the genus/species not listed here (and there is no taxobox)? Badagnani 05:35, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
 * not only that, but it doesn't say where they are native to. I couldn't tell if they were native to central america, or elsewhere and imported. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.127.79.43 (talk • contribs).

Furthermore, "plantain" refers to two different genera, Plantago and Musa -- this entry references both without distinction! Washort 00:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Alternative medicine?
This is in the alternative medicine category but I can't see any part of the article that discusses such a use. Has it been wrongly categorised, or could someone explain its uses in alternaive medicine?Merkinsmum 20:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

See: A patented plantain extract for treating Crohn's disease.

http://www.nutraingredients.com/news/ng.asp?n=75224&m=1NIE323&c=mdwytyoturbjxro

Answ: I don't know what's this article is talking about but actually the Plantain is completely different thing! Look here: http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/p/placom43.html And yes Plantain leaf is known as a medicine plant for centuries!


 * I'm removing the Alternative medicine category. __meco 10:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

too many methods of cooking?
Is it just me, or is two thirds of this article written about ways to cook the plantain? I think they should be moved to a separate article. Hoogli 19:01, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

How to pronounce it
Well I am in an argument with a class mate and i want to know is it Plaintain or planton, Plaintain is how africans pronounce it but planton is how people from the islands pronounce it? Why do you think this is Ļăŋ, Đřăĝόŉ Ķňĭģħŧ Ŏf Ĺĭģĥť 02:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The latter is closer. The name of the fruit as pronounced by native speakers of English sounds like 'plantin'. I don't know about the Africans that you know, but all that I know also say 'plantin'. Perhaps the Africans that you know come from Francophone countries. Anglophone Ghanaians and Nigerians that grew up eating it are pretty much in accord with people from the Anglophone Caribbean. More importantly, every authoritative English dictionary has 'plantin' as the standard pronunciation.Sandschie (talk) 05:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've always pronounced it "plan-tane". AmericanLeMans (talk) 01:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I would concur that most North Americans pronouns it "plan-TAYN" or similarly, Though this may be due to ignorance, still it is the common pronunciation encountered in the anglophone Western Hemisphere - And it is quite useful in distinguishing the banana from the herb of the same name.71.161.198.124 (talk) 01:31, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Maduros
What is the etymology of "maduros"? Badagnani 08:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Maduro is Spanish for "Mature". In this case, the word "maduro" (mature), is how you would refer to a plantain as "ripe" in Spanish. 98.199.157.182 (talk) 09:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Life Cycle
The life cycle of this fruit seems unusual. There are hints of it in the shoots section. A section that outlined the natural life cycle and how it is manipulated for growing as a crop would be very helpful. --69.64.230.136 (talk) 05:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Yo-yo
I was born and raised in Venezuela and I have never heard about this form of cooking plantains. I believe this must be a traditional way of cooking plantains in some other country. 67.173.136.128 (talk) 19:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Macho Bananas
I've seen these marketed as "macho bananas", but don't see that stated in the text, or in a citable page. Wasn't sure how to work in the wording, without hassles... any ideas? Zephyrad (talk) 21:46, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The first step, I think, would be to find a reliable source that can be referenced. Can you find a link to such and post it here? --4wajzkd02 (talk) 23:43, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Plantain Skins
Has anybody used them in cooking? I've come across a couple of recipes, where the skins are softened in water, seasoned, then fried. http://www.pachakam.com/recipe.asp?id=4643&RecipeName=Vazhakka%20Tholi%20(Plantain%20Skins)%20Thoran http://www.asiasociety.org/style-living/food-recipes/recipe/fruits/green-plantain-skin-temperado If plantain skins are a common element of Asian cooking, it'd be interesting to refer to it in article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NinetyNineFennelSeeds (talk • contribs) 13:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Nutritional Information
I think their ought to be a section containing some nutritional information. Many other food articles have this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.5.84.2 (talk) 12:31, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Dishes
MUST be cut down. :( I'll try and turn this into a list or else move this to an entirely separate article.--A Step Into Oblivion (talk) 12:19, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Infobox needs more information
I think it would improve this article if the infobox at the Top Right of the article gives the genus and family of the plantain -   I take it that they are in the family musaceae, the same as the banana. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:04, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I've added the genus; at present the "cultivar infobox" doesn't allow the family to be displayed, although I think it should. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:33, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Restructure proposal
A substantial proportion of this article is based on the assumption that plantains can be distinguished from bananas. Consider the Production trends section. The FAO website reports for 2011 that the production of plantains in the Philippines and India was 0 – yes, zero. But this is because the statistics for the Philippines and India don't distinguish between bananas and plantains – the total production was about 9.2 million metric tonnes in the Philippines and about 29.7 million metric tonnes in India, of which a substantial proportion will be plantains. Uganda is certainly not the top producer of plantains as the article says; I'm pretty sure that it is India.

My preference is make this into an article on the food uses of cooked bananas/plantains and move all the rest of the information to the Bananas article – quite a bit duplicates what is there already anyway. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Production trends
I've now had a chance to look at the source data, and have created two tables at Banana. Because three of the top four producers of bananas and plantains (India, China and the Philippines) don't produce statistics which distinguish between bananas and plantains, it's simply not possible to produce any useful comparisons. For example, if half of India's production were classified as "plantain", it would be larger than all of Uganda's banana and plantain production, let alone the amount classified as "plantain". The section in the article noted the problem with the data, but then went on to interpret it anyway, which was quite misleading, so I have removed it completely. It would be possible to write about plantain production in East Africa, for which the stats appear to be available, but not for the world as a whole. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:51, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The removal was reasonable; now we'll just have to watch the page like hawks for new attempts to over-interpret the (lack of) statistics (i.e.: WP:SYNTH). I'll add Plantain to my watch list. Hamamelis (talk) 03:59, 3 February 2013 (UTC)