Food storage hacks are a great way to help curb waste but when it comes to things like bananas, it can seem like a losing battle.
Most people store the curved, yellow fruits in a bowl on the kitchen counter or table, but quickly see them go off in a matter of days.
In fact, within just three days of bringing them home, it’s not uncommon for the skin to start turning brown and spotty, not to mention mushy inside.
However, according to experts at Kitchen Tips Online, it’s easy to slow this process down by making one simple change to the way you store bananas.
They claimed that following their simple method would preserve the bright yellow stage of ripeness for as long as 15 days.
In a video posted on their popular YouTube channel, Mike from Kitchen Tips Online demonstrated the results of an experiment he did at home.
The food storage enthusiast purchased two bunches of bananas from the very same shelf in the same supermarket.
After bringing them home, he placed one bunch on the kitchen counter and the second in an airtight container, also on his kitchen counter.
One thing he added to the container bunch was a clever contraption known as ethylene absorption balls.
These work by interacting with ethylene gas, which is a naturally occurring substance produced in the stem of bananas.
This gas spreads to the rest of the fruit with time to aid the ripening process, which is often sped up when bananas are broken off from their bunch by the firm stem.
While some people utilise cling film to wrap the stems in a bid to slow down the ripening of individual bananas, Mike’s experiment proved the effectiveness of ethylene absorption balls when it comes to the longevity of perfectly ripe fruit.
Every day, the Kitchen Tips Online expert examined the fruit on the counter and the bunch in the airtight container to see how they were ripening.
He observed: “Day five and six is when we start to notice a significant difference. On day eight, I noticed the bananas not in the container were significantly softer than the ones in the container. So at that point, I decided to put those bananas in the refrigerator.”
According to Mike, putting the bananas in the fridge after they ripen on the kitchen counter allows the inside of the banana to slow down its ripening. Meanwhile, the outside will continue to ripen and turn very dark.
However, by day 12, Mike revealed that there was still “a little bit of green” on the container bananas, and by day 15, he claimed that the tinge of green remained.
Though there was some minor bruising on the container bananas by this point, the food storage expert claimed that this was simple from the weight of the container, noting that the fruit was still “quite edible”. “Day five and six is when we start to notice a significant difference,” he said.
