<story><title>Why is chicken so cheap? [video]</title><url>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiYVoHEV5hs</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RandallBrown</author><text>Wow, 39 is much shorter than I expected.&lt;p&gt;I guess it makes sense, because how else could you keep up with demand, but my view of animal lifecycles only has stuff like bugs fully maturing so quickly.&lt;p&gt;Interesting stuff.&lt;p&gt;Now my question is why are bananas so cheap? They come all the way from like Brazil, but they&amp;#x27;re still cheaper than the apple that is grown just a couple hours from me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>anon5579</author><text>Regarding bananas, I would recommend taking a look at the history of the United Fruit Company:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;United_Fruit_Company&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;United_Fruit_Company&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s really a fascinating but tragic history of the exploitation of &amp;quot;banana republics&amp;quot; where banana exports become so profitable that a US-based company owned more land in some Central American countries than anyone else.  They had (have?) huge fleets of ships solely for the purpose of bringing bananas into the US.&lt;p&gt;It is quite a long and complicated story, and there are more than a few books written about it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why is chicken so cheap? [video]</title><url>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiYVoHEV5hs</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RandallBrown</author><text>Wow, 39 is much shorter than I expected.&lt;p&gt;I guess it makes sense, because how else could you keep up with demand, but my view of animal lifecycles only has stuff like bugs fully maturing so quickly.&lt;p&gt;Interesting stuff.&lt;p&gt;Now my question is why are bananas so cheap? They come all the way from like Brazil, but they&amp;#x27;re still cheaper than the apple that is grown just a couple hours from me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ymolodtsov</author><text>Bananas are very easy &amp;amp; cheap to transport which led to them becoming a more popular fruit, accelerating demand and supply, etc, etc.&lt;p&gt;They can be delivered while they are green and sturdy and then they are kept in ethylene atmosphere which makes them ripe so they can be instantly sold to the consumers.</text></comment>