How To Prevent Bananas From Turning Brown – Video

 

We’ve all been there. We buy a bunch of bananas on our weekly grocery shopping day, and 3 days later we’re left with 4 uneaten bananas, brown, soft, and unappetizing. Not too mention the amount of fruit flies one of those smooshy bananas can attract. In the trash they go! It’s time we all learn how to prevent bananas from turning brown, in such a short time. We need them to last us the week, people!

 

Banana stripping off peel while other bananas cheer on

 

This whole brown banana thing can get really frustrating. It seems like the day you take them out of your grocery bag, is the same day they start to turn.


Lets first get an understanding of why bananas (or any fruit for that matter) turns brown in the first place. It’s really a simple reason, and in turn, calls for a simple solution for the banana.


From the stems of bananas, ethylene is released, causing it to ripen. Ethylene is a hormone which breaks down the sugars and pectin which are the 2 things which keep bananas hard and fresh. They will also break down the green pigment which turns your bananas yellow.

 

When the ethylene is released, it’s similar to when leaves fall off a tree in autumn and lose their wonderful greens and turn brown. So we need to keep that ethylene from escaping in order to keep our bananas green, longer!

 

 

 

Fresh Bananas

 

How To Prevent Bananas From Turning Brown

How To Prevent Bananas From Turning Brown

Say what now? Duct tape? Yup! In fact, pretty much any strong packing tape will work. In about 60 seconds, you can arm your bananas with a defense mechanism that will prevent bananas from turning brown.

its easy how to prevent a banana from turning brown

Here’s a super easy and preventative measure you can take as soon as you get those bunch of bananas home. Do this and they can last longer than a week! (Depending on certain conditions)

Below this video, I have added another great tip to keep them fresh even longer, and help your other fruit ripen faster! But lets get into the how to prevent bananas from turning brown video, first……

Some of the most menial things in life, are exactly the things that drives us the most crazy. ie: The rotten banana. The last thing we need is for a banana ruining our new Vera Bradley Lunch Bag, because we forgot to take it out, just one day earlier. Put a fresh banana in your bag, and it won’t turn to mush the next day!


We expect our fruit to turn. In fact, we expect it to turn pretty quick. But bananas turn brown in 3 days. If it’s a humid summer week, they could start turning in as little as 1 day.


It’s frustrating for a number of reasons. One being, the money spent on them was completely wasted. I don’t know about you, but for us, food is expensive. We live in NYC where breathing the air is expensive. We don’t need our bright yellow bananas with a bright white solid interior, to go all limp and brown. Bananas are like Superman turning into Clark Kent.

Another frustrating thing about the soft brown banana are the fruit flies they can attract. And now you have a second problem to deal with. Getting rid of those annoying fruit flies.

Brown, rotten bananas are all around, a bad thing.


 

 

 

Lets save the banana by following the simple steps below.

 

1. Cut off about a 2 inch strip of tape and place it over the dark part of the stem on top of your bananas. Press hard.


2. Now cut a larger piece of tape and wrap it around the stems tightly.


Make sure the tape is wrapped tightly and push any air bubbles out, along the way. You want to make sure none of that ethylene escapes!

Some people will use plastic wrap around the stem in place of tape.
We find that plastic doesn’t stick very well. But if you want to give your bananas an even stronger
defense system, you can put the plastic on first and then wrap it with tape to hold it all in place.

Bonus Tip!
A lot of times you’ll buy fruits like peaches or avocado, and those fruits can take days and days to ripen. Often we put those types of fruit in a brown bag for a couple days in order to get them to ripen faster.

So, if you’re the type who likes to put their bananas in a bowl for storage, then this is for you!

Place an unripened avocado in the center of that bowl, surrounded by your bananas, and the avocado will “take” the ethylene from your bananas, keeping your bananas fresh longer and your avocado will ripen faster! It’s a double wammy on your fruit. Way to stick it to em 🙂

Already have brown bananas? Don’t know what to do we them? We’ve got the perfect solution!

Thats it everyone! Thats how to prevent bananas from turing brown. Let everyone know how easy it is, by sharing this post! Do you have any tips on how to keep bananas from turning brown? We’d love to hear them in the comments below!

 


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9 comments

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    • Edwin on March 9, 2016 at 8:54 pm
    • Reply

    WOW! I was very impressed with this article on how to keep bananas from turning brown. It’s funny because that is simply the reason I sometimes don’t buy them because they don’t last as long as I need them to.

    Now that I know this awesome tip, I can go out and buy with confidence.

    Thanks

    1. Such a simple trick, right Edwin?! We’re so happy we discovered this and hope now you are too!

      – S & V

    • Riaz Shah on March 10, 2016 at 1:43 am
    • Reply

    Hey Stephen,
    Great article on preventing bananas from rotting out. I’ve had this problem for so long that in the end I don’t bother buying bananas at all.

    Those fruit flies are a nuisance and when I feel like eating, I just take my colleague’s one instead, or buy those super small ones so that I can finish it in a day or two.. Cool article, do come up with more cool tips!

    1. Yeah, bananas tend to go bad and turn black really quick. Using this trick definitely helps, as we do this ourselves! Keeping the bunch of bananas fresh for a week or longer. Give it a try and let us know how it works out for you!

      – S & V

    • Guy on April 19, 2016 at 5:38 pm
    • Reply

    Great tip. I found this so cool that I share it to my friends on Facebook.

    I will try it out to see how good it actually work. That’s one of the reason why I don’t buy too many bananas at the same time. I love bananas. But I hate it when they are either green or too dark to eat…. Although it can make good banana cakes and post high carbs to add with a protein shake for the glucemic effect.

    Cool stuff anyway… thanks for sharing!

      • Stephen on July 2, 2017 at 7:10 pm
      • Reply

      Thanks for your comment, Guy! Speaking of banana bread, check out this cool recipe we have on our site! Keeping bananas fresh and lasting longer is the goal but like you said, you can make some good food with those bananas that go brown!

      S & V

    • Gina on April 21, 2016 at 4:44 pm
    • Reply

    WOW! This is the ‘you learn something new every day’ thing for me. I absolutely when I grocery shop then go to eat my first banana and it’s already bad. I’m going to be trying this out for sure. I find that refridgerating the bananas can help too.
    Another thing, does the brown bag thing make bananas ripen faster? Recently bought organic bananas and they stayed green for over a month, it was insane! I couldn’t believe it because of how quickly bananas usually go bad.

    • Cathy on July 3, 2017 at 3:33 pm
    • Reply

    What? Duct tape?? I live in the hot and humid tropics so you can imagine how fast the bananas turn brown here. That’s why I am not a big fan of banana and would rather eat long shelf life fruits such as oranges and apples that don’t rot as fast.

    But I am certainly going to give this a try to keep bananas from turning brown. I think my parents would be happy to know that we don’t have to throw away 3-day old bananas ever again.

    1. Duck tape, Cathy! Ha! It’s crazy sounding but it works. Wrap those stems tight so the bananas stay fresh a lot longer! Let us know how it works out for you 🙂

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