In May 2023, I sealed two jars on a shelf and walked away. One held a whole banana, unpeeled. The other held only a banana peel. I did not open them again. Two years later, the results were astonishing — not just for what they revealed about fruit decay, but for what they suggested about the nature of health, disease, and how we interpret the causes of illness.
Two Jars, Two Stories
The jar with the complete banana transformed dramatically. Within days, it exploded with fungal growth. White filaments spread across the surface and thickened into a bloom that seemed to consume the entire fruit. Over time, the banana itself collapsed into a brownish-black liquid, filling about a fifth of the jar. The once-solid fruit dissolved entirely, leaving only residue and memory.
The peel jar told a different story. The yellow skin, instead of collapsing into mush, shifted to a greenish-yellow hue, folded inward, and curled into a snake-like form. It looked uncanny, almost alive, but it remained intact. At the base sat a thin layer of clear liquid, barely a millimeter deep.
Both jars were sealed. Both were subjected to the same environment. Yet one turned to liquid shadow, while the other endured in strange preservation.
Fungus or Fuel?
If fungus was the cause, shouldn’t both jars have been overwhelmed in the same way? They were exposed to the same spores, the same air, the same sealed conditions. But the fungus thrived only where it had fuel.
The banana flesh, rich in sugars and water, was perfect food. The peel, fibrous and nutrient-poor, offered little to feed on. The fungus wasn’t an external invader that came to conquer; it was an opportunist, flourishing where conditions favored growth and faltering where they did not.
That distinction matters. The same environment, but two different terrains.
From Bananas to Bodies
Watching the jars over time, I realized this wasn’t just about fruit. It was about us.
We are constantly exposed to microbes. They are on our skin, in our lungs, throughout our digestive system. Yet we are not constantly sick. Why? Because health is not determined only by exposure, but by the condition of our internal terrain.
If the body is balanced — nourished, detoxified, and resilient — microbes pass through without incident. But if the body is weakened — malnourished, toxic, or stressed — then the same microbes can bloom, just as the fungus bloomed in the banana flesh.
It is not simply the presence of germs that matters. It is the state of the terrain.
The Terrain Camp
This realization placed me firmly in what is often called the “terrain camp” of understanding disease.
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Germ theory claims that disease is caused by invading pathogens.
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Terrain theory holds that disease arises when the body’s internal environment is compromised, allowing opportunistic microbes to flourish.
The banana jars became my teachers. No outside invader entered either jar after sealing. Everything that happened was determined by what was already inside. One terrain was fertile, the other resistant. The results were undeniable.
A Lesson in Illness
Think of how illness often manifests in people. Not everyone exposed to the same environment becomes sick. Some fall ill while others remain unaffected. Children may catch what their parents avoid. Entire households may live together, one person bedridden, another barely sneezing.
If germs alone dictated health, outcomes would be uniform. But they aren’t. Just like the two jars, individuals with different terrains respond differently, even under the same conditions.
This doesn’t mean germs are irrelevant. It means they are opportunists, not assassins. They exploit weakness. They thrive where imbalance provides an opening.
The Power of Environment
The jars also remind us of environment’s role. Both were sealed, both were starved of oxygen, but it was the nutritional richness of the banana flesh that tipped the balance. In human health, it is the combination of environment and internal condition — nutrition, toxins, stress, rest — that determines whether we flourish or falter.
We often blame invisible invaders when collapse comes from within. But the jars whisper a different truth: appearances deceive. It is not always an external enemy. Sometimes it is our own terrain, neglected or depleted, that determines our fate.
A Parable for Our Time
Two years sealed on a shelf, the banana jars became a quiet parable. One shows what happens when the terrain is rich in sugars: explosive growth, breakdown, and collapse. The other shows what happens when the terrain is resistant: transformation, endurance, a strange preservation.
The lesson is simple:
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It wasn’t what got into the jar that determined the outcome. It was what was already in the banana.
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And so it is with us.
Conclusion: Toward a Better Understanding of Health
The debate between germ theory and terrain theory has raged for centuries. But my jars convinced me that terrain matters most. Illness is not merely the result of invasion. It is the product of imbalance.
We cannot always control exposure, but we can tend to our terrain. We can nourish, detoxify, and strengthen the body so that microbes, like the fungus in the peel jar, find nothing to feast upon.
The jars stand as silent witnesses. They remind us that science is not just about what we are told, but about what we observe. They remind us that decay is not always an invasion, but a collapse from within. And they remind us that the difference between health and illness may not be the germ, but the ground in which it seeks to grow.
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