If by “go bad” you mean that the banana peel gets incredibly grotesque looking, then this is true. However, if you mean that the inside gets all mushy and tastes awful, a-la extreme over ripeness, or the old wives’ tale that bananas in the refrigerator will produce poison gas or other toxins, neither of these are correct. Despite the fact that the banana peel will turn dark brown, making it appear “bad”, the part you eat inside actually stays quite good in the refrigerator.
In fact, such banana selling companies as Chiquita and Dole recommend you do this to make the banana last longer in its perfect ripeness stage. Once a banana reaches its optimal ripeness for your tastes, but not before, stick it in the refrigerator to drastically slow the conversion of starch into sugars, almost to the point of stopping the ripening process.
The peel will quickly begin to look like the banana’s rotted, due to the polyphenyl oxidase enzyme in bananas polymerizing phenols in the peel into polyphenols. But other than the somewhat unappetizing blackened peel that results from this, it won’t negatively affect the banana in the short term. Remove the blackened peel and throw it away and you’ll see that the flesh inside is as delicious as ever.
It’s important not to put the bananas in the refrigerator before they’ve reached the level of ripeness you like though. As Chiquita bananas says, “If you place your unripe Chiquita bananas in the refrigerator, they may not be able to resume the ripening process even if they are returned to room temperature.”
Bananas can typically be kept this way in the refrigerator for about a week. This is obviously significantly longer than an optimally ripe banana will last at room temperature, which always seems to me to be approximately 6 seconds. If you don’t like cold bananas, simply let the blackened looking refrigerated banana sit at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour or so and then remove the peel and eat it.
If you find the look of refrigerated bananas too unappealing, there are other ways to keep bananas fresh longer. For instance, you can slow the ripening process of a banana by keeping the banana away from other fruits, including the bananas on the same hand the finger came from. Bananas put off large amounts of the hormone ethylene, relative to many other fruits. This triggers and quickens the ripening process significantly. In fact, if you’d like to speed up the ripening of some green bananas or other fruit or vegetables, put them in a paper bag together over night. The trapped ethylene will quickly ripen the fruit, and the paper bag will still let enough oxygen in to keep the ripening process going smoothly. On the same token, putting fresh bananas in the same container as an overripe banana will rapidly accelerate the ripening process of the fresh bananas, which is already quite a fast process.
Another banana ripening/timing tip is rather than buying bananas all from the same hand, which usually means all the fingers will be about the same ripeness, pick bananas from different hands of varying ripeness, some that are ready to eat now down to ones that won’t be ready for at least a few days or more. Now keep the bananas stored separately. This way you won’t have the annoying problem of having a hand of bananas that all ripen on the same day, resulting in you inevitably having to throw some of them out.
If you liked this article and the
Bonus Facts below, you might also like:
Bananas are Naturally Radioactive
Commercial Banana Plants are All Perfect Clones of One Another and Other Interesting Banana Facts
“Avocado” Derives From a Word Meaning “Testicle”
Why Leaves Change Color in the Fall
Apple Seeds Contain Cyanide and Other Interesting Apple Facts
Navel Oranges are All Perfect Clones of One Another and Other Interesting Orange Facts
Bonus Facts:
Ethylene is used by banana distributors to partially ripen the fruit before the final distribution to stores. Bananas are picked when they are quite green and hard. They are shipped this way to allow them to be in transit for longer periods, as well as reduce the chances of bruising. Once they are at the local distribution warehouses, they are often exposed to ethylene gas in a closed chamber to drastically accelerate the ripening process, making them ready for store shelves.
Commercial ethylene for this setting is generally produced by using liquid ethanol combined with “catalytic generators” to produce ethylene gas. Generally just 500 to 2000 parts per million for 24-48 hours is all that’s needed to get the bananas set for the produce market.
Ethylene is also the reason why “one bad apple will spoil the bunch.” The bad apple, or other wounded fruit, will give off quite a large amount of ethylene, relatively speaking, due to the wounding of a fruit stimulating ripening and thus ethylene production. In the enclosed space of a storage box or the like, this will quickly spoil the other apples.
The first known use of humans using ethylene to stimulate ripening was the Ancient Egyptians who would slash figs in order to accelerate the ripening process of fruits and vegetables. The Chinese also for millennia have been burning certain types of incense in enclosed spaces to help accelerate the process of ripening pears. Neither of these cultures actually knew why this worked, just that it did.
In 1901, Russian scientist Dimitry Neljubow discovered ethylene produced by street lights was responsible for abnormal growth of plants, including stunted growth and thickening of stems. 33 years later it was discovered that ethylene was produced by plants and a year after that that ethylene was integral to the fruit ripening process, among other things.
Other functions of ethylene with plants include:
stimulates the release of dormancy
stimulates root and shoot growth
stimulates fruit and leaf dropping
stimulates flower opening
Certain plants can be induced to flower by placing a few banana peels next to the plant in an enclosed space.
According to Food Safety Specialist Brian Nummer, the myth that bananas produce toxins when put in the refrigerator started shortly after the famed Chiquita Banana advertising jingle instructing people not to put bananas in the refrigerator. Chiquita’s changed their tune today and correctly recommends simply waiting to put the banana in the refrigerator until it has ripened to your liking.
The original Chiquita jingle is as follows ( listen here): I’m Chiquita banana and I’ve come to say – Bananas have to ripen in a certain way – When they are fleck’d with brown and have a golden hue – Bananas taste the best and are best for you – You can put them in a salad – You can put them in a pie-aye – Any way you want to eat them – It’s impossible to beat them – But, bananas like the climate of the very, very tropical equator – So you should never put bananas in the refrigerator
References:
Do Refrigerated Bananas Become Poisonous?
How to Stop Bananas From Going Black
Banana Ripening Tips
Ethylene
Ethylene Facts
Fruit Ripening Experiment
Fruits That Spoil Quickly
Fruit Facts
Polyphenol
Image Source
为什麽放在冰箱里的香蕉更快变坏?
拜伦特问"为什麽放在冰箱里的香蕉比放在室温下更快变坏?"
如果"变坏"是指香蕉皮变得看起来非常奇怪,那就对了。但如果是指里面的肉变得粘糊糊,而且有种过熟很难吃的味道,又或者像那些无稽之谈说香蕉在冰箱里会放出毒气之类的有毒物质,那就大错特错。虽然说在香蕉皮在冰箱里会变成深啡色,看起来像坏了一样, 但里面的肉却还保持很好的状态。
其实像金吉逹和都乐这样的香蕉销售公司会建议你把香蕉放在冰箱里让它那理想成熟的状态保持得久一些。要等到香蕉成熟到适合你口味的那个时候,而不是在此之前,把它放进冰箱,这样会大大地减慢它自身淀粉转换成糖分地过程,甚至使香蕉几乎停止继续变熟。
很快香蕉皮的模样看起来就像香蕉要腐烂似的,原因是香蕉里的多酚氧化酶把蕉皮里的酚类聚合成多酚类,但除了使蕉皮变黑,让人掉胃口,这转换在短期内对香蕉没有负面影响。剥开变黑的皮,把它扔掉,你会发现果肉依旧美味。
有一点很重要,就是在香蕉熟到适合你口味之前,别把它放到冰箱。按照金吉逹香蕉公司的话说"如果你把不熟的金吉达香蕉放进冰箱,就算以后再把它们放在室温里,它们可能不会再继续变熟了"。
香蕉一般可在冰箱里存放大概一周,这明显远比在室温下的香蕉要耐放,而对我来说在室温下香蕉只消一阵子就会熟透。假如你不喜欢冷的香蕉,那就索性把那黑了皮的冷冻香蕉放在室温下,等半至一小时后左右,就剥皮把它吃掉。
又如果你觉后冷冻香蕉太难看,还有其它方法可以让它保鲜。举个例子,你可以把香蕉和其它水果,或和同属一串的香蕉分开放,让它慢点变熟。香蕉和许多其它的水果一样,会放出大量乙烯荷尔蒙,诱发且迅速加快香蕉成熟的过程。其实如果你想要让一些绿色的香蕉或蔬菜快点成熟,就把它们放在纸袋里过一晚上。它们积存的乙烯会马上把水果催熟,而纸袋会收进足够的氧气使这个过桯顺利进行。为达到同样的效果,也可以把新鲜的香蕉放到纸袋,由熟透的香蕉快速使其催熟。
另一种催熟香蕉,或者说控制这个时机的窍门就是,不要买一整串香蕉,因为一整串香蕉的成熟程度是一样的,要选成熟不一的,不在同一串上的香蕉,换句话说,就是有些熟得可以吃了,有些却还要很久才熟的。你也可以把在同一串上的香蕉分开存放,这样你就不用担心一下子整串都熟了,害你不得不扔掉几根。
如果你喜欢这篇文章和下面的参考资料,可能你会对以下有兴趣:
香蕉的天然放射性
商业性香蕉植物是彼此完美的克隆及其它香蕉趣闻
"鳄梨"一词衍生自"睪丸"一词
树叶为何在秋天变色
苹果种子含有氰化物及其它苹果趣闻
脐橙是彼些的完美克隆及其它橙类趣闻
参考资料:
在香蕉被送到店铺前,经销商会用乙烯部来将其局部催熟。青绿色较硬的香蕉会被选中,接著被运送到各地,因为这种状态下的香蕉适合长途运输且不易受损。它们一到达当地经销仓库,就通常会被放在一个充满乙烯的密封空间来进行快速催熟,然后准备在店铺上架。
在这个密封的环境里的商用乙烯一般是用液态乙醇结合催化发生器而生成的乙烯气体。通常香蕉只要曝露在浓度在百万分之五百到两千的乙烯长达一天到两天后,便能放到市场上销售。
从另一个角度,乙烯被视为促成"害群之马"的元凶。就是说,变坏的或受损水果会相对地释放出大量乙烯,从而加速催化,催生更多乙烯。这个过程发生在一个紧闭的储物箱和类似的空间里会迅速地破坏,或者说催熟其它果子。古埃及人是我们迄今所知最早以乙烯用作催化的人,他们会鞭打无花果来催熟蔬果。中国人用各类香火在密室催熟梨子的做法也已沿用千年。但其实这两个民族都不知道箇中原理,只是觉得有用便为之。
1901年,俄罗斯科学家迪米特蕾.奈刘波发现街灯产生的乙烯令植物异常成长,包括引起矮化成长和根茎粗化。三十三年后,乙烯被发现是来自于植物,一年后它被发现是引发果类催化的关键之一。
乙烯对植物的其它作用包括:
诱发破眠
刺激根部和嫩枝成长
加速果叶成熟脱落
促使开花
在密室内,把一些香蕉皮放在某些植物旁边会刺激其开花。
食物安全专家布莱恩林默指出,在著名的金吉达香蕉公司放出广告歌宣传不要把香蕉放在冰箱不久后,开始有流言蜚语,说香蕉会在冰箱会产生毒素。今天,金吉达修改了调子,并正确地指导人们要等香蕉成熟到一定程度才把它放进冰箱。
