Just a few decades ago, bananas were truly exotic for Russian residents. But today these overseas fruits are sometimes cheaper than the traditional cucumbers and tomatoes in our area. Palm fruits are eaten fresh, they are turned into an ingredient in baked goods and cream for cakes and pastries, they are used to make ice cream, smoothies, souffles, sorbet - and many other delicacies. Therefore, the question of how best to store bananas so as not to spoil is of concern to every domestic housewife. After all, it’s good when there are a couple of ripe fruits in the refrigerator or freezer, ready at any moment for your next culinary experiment.
Basic rules
There are three most important rules that must be remembered at the initial stage of conversation about the duration and methods of storing bananas.
- Light promotes ripening. Having brought a fragrant “catch” from the store, you do not need to put it on a well-lit windowsill or table. If you want your fruit to retain its freshness for as long as possible, place it in a dry, dark place. Optimally - in a kitchen cabinet, reliably protected by a door from the penetration of sunlight.
- Refrigerator for ripened fruits. It is prohibited to send unripe fruits with green skins to the refrigerator. Low temperatures do not allow fruits to ripen properly. This means that violation of proper storage conditions can lead to loss of nutritional value of the product and loss of characteristic taste.
- Freezing for peeled fruits. If you decide to turn the yellow oblong fruit into a semi-finished product, it must be freed from its dense peel.
Ripe bananas stored in the refrigerator will not turn black on the inside. Only the peel will lose its aesthetic appearance, while the pulp will remain intact.
Cause of blackening of fruits
Bananas are a storehouse of potassium, a substance that acts as a protector for the heart muscle, providing it with reliable protection and support. Due to its high calorie content, eating tropical fruit is not recommended for people watching their figure and patients suffering from diabetes. Bananas contain a large amount of complex carbohydrates, which change under the influence of oxygen. Or, more precisely, they fall apart. One part is converted into sucrose, and the second into substances similar in composition to melamine.
It is melamine-like substances that cause the “tanning” that appears unevenly on the fruit, spots of which first appear on the peel, and only then on the pulp of the tropical fruit. Eating a blackened banana is unpleasant not only from an aesthetic point of view. Under the influence of oxygen, its taste also changes. And not for the best. Not to mention the consistency, which completely turns into some kind of brown mucus.
Properly storing ripe bananas is not an easy task. In many cases, the buyer is doomed to fail. Air temperatures above 15°C doom the fruit to instant ripening and overripening. And if the ripe bunch was kept at too low a temperature in the supermarket, and once it gets into your home, it warms up, the blackening will only speed up, not slow down.
Bananas should not be stored next to apples or other ready-to-eat fruits. Ripe fruits share ethylene, a gas that stimulates rapid ripening, with highly perishable tropical natives.
How to store bananas at home
How long can bananas be stored, in what way and in what form? It's time to find answers to these questions. Of course, adjusted for the degree of ripeness of the fruit. For ripe and green fruits, storage rules will be different.
Ripe
Reviews from Internet users, based on practice, confirm a fact known to many: ripe fruits are best stored in clusters, without separating the banana stems. It is enough to hang them by a bunch of tails in a cool, dry place where the sun's rays do not penetrate. In an apartment, you can use a pantry or closet on a glazed balcony for these purposes. But this is not the only rule that housewives should follow. There are three more.
- No package. Plastic packaging has a detrimental effect on the freshness of the product. An environment with high humidity and high temperature is created inside the bag. Therefore, fruits that you forgot to take out of a plastic bag turn black in the blink of an eye.
- At a temperature of 12-15°C. If you store bananas at this temperature, you will be able to prolong the freshness of the product for one and a half to two weeks. Coolness slows down the ripening of tropical fruits, so in summer they can be kept in the basement, and in winter - on an insulated balcony.
- At humidity 50-60%. Humidity is another important indicator that affects the rate of ripening of palm fruits. Too dry and too damp air has a negative effect. While maintaining an optimal level of humidity helps maintain freshness.
Greens
There is no need for yellow bananas to ripen. But bright or partially green is a must. If you purchased “greens” not to store them for weeks, but only because there were no ripe fruits on the counter, you are faced with the task of speeding up the ripening process of your favorite delicacy.
So, how to store green bananas to quickly enjoy their taste? Place a bunch of green bananas in a paper bag. There is also one large or several small fully ripe fruits. For example, a miniature melon or two or three juicy pears. Wrap the package tightly and place it in the refrigerator, in the vegetable tray. After three to five days, you can open the package and safely enjoy the result of the experiment.
Many people are interested in the question of whether it is possible to store peeled bananas in the refrigerator. It is possible, but not more than a day. Tropical fruits, peeled, cut into slices and sprinkled with lemon juice, placed in the refrigerator, will turn black within 18-24 hours.
How to determine the quality of a Banana
Bananas occupy a leading position in popularity among all fruits not only in Russia, but also in other countries. These fruits are actively used for preparing desserts, salads and other dishes. They are a common diet for athletes and people who want to lose weight. In addition, they are inexpensive, have a pleasant sweet taste and are highly nutritious.
But in order to end up on the counter of a Russian store, these fruits travel long distances and undergo many tests. There is a whole technological process that allows you to preserve the taste for several days. Unfortunately, it is not always strictly adhered to, which leads to the appearance of defective tropical fruits on the shelves. And the question of how to choose the right bananas in a store becomes relevant for consumers.
What does GOST say?
The quality of bananas in Russia is determined in accordance with GOST R 51603-2000, according to which these fruits are divided into three varieties.
Extra - 4-8 fruits with a length of 20 or more centimeters in a hand. The first - 5-9 pieces from 19 cm in hand. The second - 3-11 lengths from 14 centimeters in the hand.
The diameter of bananas arriving on the shelves of Russian stores reaches 3-4 centimeters. There are other varieties with smaller diameter and length, but they are rarely found in stores in our country.
Based on GOST, we can conclude that bananas of the “extra” variety of maximum length have the best taste. But this cannot be considered the main criterion for choosing fruits; there are other parameters that should be paid attention to.
Signs of low-quality bananas
To understand which bananas to choose, you need to decide on the answer to the question of which fruits you should not buy.
It is not advisable to purchase fruits sold in whole clusters or as individual fruits; they contain more bacteria than fruits in a full cluster. It is better not to choose fruits with brown spots on the skin, as they have already begun to deteriorate. Small black dots are allowed, indicating that the banana is fully ripe. If the fruit has a matte green peel with gray and brown additions, this indicates signs of frostbite. These are also not worth buying. Fruits with green stalks and tips are not recommended for selection, as their taste leaves much to be desired. If bananas have no stems and cracked skins, you shouldn't buy them. Avoid such fruits with signs of agricultural diseases in the form of deep red spots of thrips nesting and peel ulcers. Do not buy fruits with increased ribbing, which means that they were picked early and were not allowed to ripen. Bananas with scars, cuts and other pronounced mechanical damage should not be purchased. Most likely, they have already disappeared or will disappear soon.
How to choose quality bananas
Knowing the main signs of low-quality bananas, you can weed out such fruits and buy only high-quality fruits in stores. To reinforce your knowledge, here are the signs of such bananas.
They are sold as a whole bunch, consisting of fruits of a round shape and a rich yellow color. There may be a small area of green tint near the stalk. Small dark spots on the peel are allowed, indicating the ripeness of such fruits. These are fruits with a pronounced banana aroma and sweet taste. For high-quality ones, the pulp should be quite dense and not loose. The integrity of the peel is required. High-quality bananas feel firm and elastic to the touch. Overripe ones have a dried out stalk and wrinkled skin. Traditionally, the tastiest fruits are those located closer to the middle of the cluster. When choosing one or a couple of such fruits, it is better to stop at the central bananas. If they have a sticker with a digital code, choose those with the numbers 4011 and 94011. This means that the fruit is grown entirely naturally, without GMOs. It is important that bananas are clean, since dirt on them indicates non-compliance with storage and transportation conditions.
Choose ripe or unripe banana
Depending on the purpose, bananas of varying degrees of ripeness are selected.
The round, ribbed green fruits are endowed with firm and unsweetened white pulp. It is not recommended to eat them in this form, as the taste is unpleasant. But you can buy them, as they can ripen at home. You should choose it if you plan to use it in a few days. The best choice is bananas that are rich yellow in color with a pleasant aroma and do not have any spots or defects on the peel. These are just ripened fruits that can be stored for several more days without losing their taste. Yellow fruits with dark spots on the skin are overripe. You can choose them if you are going to use these fruits today or the next day.
Regardless of the degree of ripeness, it should be remembered that the optimal storage temperature is in the range of 11-14 C. Also, these fruits are stored in a dry and dark place, avoiding high humidity. High humidity can lead to the formation of fungi and mold.
Industrial processing
Industrial storage conditions for palm fruits are radically different from home storage methods. Before getting onto store shelves, and from there to your home, fruits go through a difficult and long journey.
- Collection. About 95% of bananas sold in our country come from Ecuador. There they are plucked from the palm trees completely green in the form of huge bunches.
- Transportation. Tropical fruits are transported by water transport. As a rule, on a ship, in a dark and cool hold, so that the products do not spoil or lose their presentation.
- Warehousing. The next stop for the natives of Ecuador is huge warehouses, inside of which the temperature conditions established by the state standard are observed (or at least must be observed).
- Treatment. An imported product certainly undergoes processing in so-called aeration chambers. It is there that bananas uniformly turn yellow and ripen before being sent to supermarkets, convenience stores and markets in our country.
Carbonation involves treatment with plant gas - ethylene. Thus, they release ripened fruits and vegetables. It does not penetrate the pulp, but the peel of the fruit should still be washed before eating.
If, due to duty or other reasons, you often have to purchase bananas in large quantities, it is worth purchasing a special hanger for storing them. The metal device will allow you to comfortably place whole bunches without separating the fruits from each other. If there is no space to install a hanger, you can store exotic fruits directly in the wooden boxes in which they are supplied. However, the film must be removed from the surface of the container.
Knowing how to store bananas at home will allow you not to run to the store for your favorite fruit every day. But if you see that it is no longer possible to help the fetuses, and nothing can be done to stop the spread of dark bedsores, prepare banana ice cream, fruit bread or a banana milkshake. Believe me, your household will be no less happy about these delicacies than the fresh fruits you have on hand every day.
Related video Experiment on storing bananas at home
Interesting Facts
Bananas in the wild are different from those sold in stores: they have seeds, unlike cultivated ones. And, by the way, bananas do not grow on a palm tree or on some other tree, but they grow on a huge perennial grass (bush). The height of this plant varies from 2 to 12 m.
There is a pattern: the higher the clusters are located during growth, the longer they are. And, as a rule, the lower fruits are sweeter than the upper ones. But, when choosing bananas in supermarkets, you should not pay attention to this, because... there is no guarantee that the bunches on the counter are from the same plant.
So, we have mastered the main rules for selecting and assessing the quality of bananas. Let's hope that the advice received will help with the choice of these subtropical fruits and that they will only bring health benefits.
