Who hasn’t complained while looking at their fruit basket? There’s nothing more annoying than buying bananas and seeing them quickly turn brown, black or completely wilted within a few days. Having to use them in a different way….. But you don’t always have the desire or time to process them into fritters or banana bread. But there is a simple trick you can use to extend their life very effectively!
The first thing to do is to never leave them with other fruits. Bananas are very sensitive to ethylene, a gas that many fruits such as apples, pears and melons naturally release after harvest. If you place them in a bowl, bananas will ripen at a furious rate.
To keep them separate, nothing is easier than hanging them on a suitable stand away from other fruits. This also allows for better air circulation around the fruit, which is another factor in preservation. In addition to these small precautions, there is a little known but very effective trick for prolonging the life of bananas. It only takes a few seconds, but it saves you a lot of trouble.
All you have to do is carefully wrap the top of the stem, where all the bananas come together, with foil or aluminum foil. This end of the bananas is strategically important because it is where most of the ethylene vapors are concentrated. By insulating it in this way, you prevent the gas from spreading to the fruit itself, causing it to ripen prematurely.
It doesn’t matter whether you use plastic or aluminum film, as long as it is sealed tightly. You don’t need a lot of film: a ten-centimeter piece is more than enough. All you need to do is to make sure that the packaging is tight and without holes.
The effect is radical: packed this way, away from ethylene-laden air, bananas will keep longer. You’ll notice that their ripening slows down. They will easily last a few more days and look appetizing for much longer. That’s enough to stop you complaining in the kitchen, but it’s also good for the environment because it reduces food waste..
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