Do you like corn flakes, rice crispies, hash brown potatoes or cocoa? These are all made from plants that come from the tropics. Without tropical forests, much of the spice would go out of our lives. Sugar, coffee, chocolate, bananas, pineapples, avocados and other fruits, flavors, and spices originated in the tropics. Worldwide, people eat 40 million tons of bananas, 13 million tons of mangoes, and about 1.5 million tons each of papaya and avocado, annually.
Wild relatives of some of these crops are still found in the tropical forests. Wild strains are valuable to agriculture because they can be crossed with cultivated varieties to help keep these crops strong and healthy. Other food sources may still await discovery in the tropical forests.
