Bananas are a popular choice of snack as they’re the perfect combination of sweet, satisfying and healthy, so they tick all the right boxes for a tasty treat. But bananas do have a downside in the fact they don’t have a very long shelf life and if you buy a whole bunch at the supermarket, you might find one or two have turned brown and mushy before you’ve got round to eating them.
When stored at room temperature, the delicious yellow fruit typically lasts up to seven days, but this can depend on how ripe the bananas are when you buy them. If they’re nice and yellow then it’s a sign they’re pretty much at their peak ripeness and ready to eat, so getting the storage right to keep them fresh is key.
But according to food experts, there’s a very easy (and cheap) way to do this, and it simply requires a slight change to how you store your bananas at home.
Bananas tend to ripen faster when they’re left to sit in a fruit bowl, so it’s best to store them away from other fruits and use a bit of tin foil to slow the ripening process down.
According to experts, wrapping the stems of bananas in tin foil helps to keep them fresher from longer as the foil traps ethylene gas – a natural ripening agent that is primarily released from the stem.
By trapping this gas, bananas can be prevented from turning brown too quickly, thereby extending their shelf life and keeping them fresh for longer. The ethylene gas helps facilitate the change in colour and softness of bananas, causing the starches to break down and form sugars. As this happens, unripe green bananas will start to turn yellow and become softer and sweeter.
Food Republic explains: “Compared to other fruits and veggies, bananas are one of the biggest producers of ethylene gas, a natural chemical compound that promotes ripening.
“The majority of this gas is released through the exposed stem of the fruit, which allows a bunch of bananas to continue ripening even after it’s picked from the tree.
“Wrapping the top of your bunch with aluminium helps to trap in some of the ethylene, so it won’t escape into the atmosphere and touch the body of the bananas (or other produce you have sitting nearby, for that matter). This slows down browning and gives you more time to enjoy your bunch.”
If you don’t have any tin foil to hand then cling film should work just as well, and both typically cost less than £2 at most major supermarkets.
It’s also worth storing your bananas away from other fruit once you’ve wrapped the stems as the ethylene gas can cause nearby fruits to ripen more quickly, meaning they will spoil faster.
Many fruits respond to the ethylene gas released by bananas, including apples, pears, and passion fruit, but citrus fruits like oranges and lemons are unaffected.
To avoid spoiling other fruits, experts recommend hanging your bananas on a banana hook instead as this not only keeps them separate, but also prevents bruising that can be caused by leaning bananas against the kitchen worktop.