Take Better Care of Your Bananas

With the government suggesting that everyone get 5 or more servings of fruit a day, many people's fruit bills are going through the roof. Bananas are a fantastic and inexpensive option, when it comes to fruit - they're sweet and tasty, some in their own wrapper, and lend themselves to all sort of hilarious gags, such as making co-workers slip and fall down or using them as a telephone. Man that one never gets old! Bananas make a quick and healthy snack, but they need to be treated a little differently than other fruit. Here's how to keep your bananas fresh and tasty before you can say bananaphone!

Many people claim that bananas, being a tropical fruit, abhor cold temperatures, and will rot almost immediately if placed in the fridge. These folks claim that keeping bananas at room temperature is absolutely the best banana practice. Indeed - most any store that carries kitchen gadgets, like Bed Bath and Beyond, would be glad to sell you a nifty little hook for hanging up your bananas around your kitchen. If you insist on keeping your bananas out at room temp, these hooks are a great solution, as they will promote even aging and quick ripening. Using these hooks up green bananas will bring them around pretty fast. For useful life, though, these folks have sorely misdirected their attentions.

Many fruits are tropical - mangoes, pineapples, kiwis, and star-fruit, as examples, and refrigeration can greatly increase their useful lives. This calls into question the most commonly used reason for storing bananas warm. The truth is, unless you have aesthetic issue with the practice, bananas are best stored in the fridge. They'll turn brown - even black - quite quickly in the fridge, but this is the peel only. The fruit within will remain firm and tasty for much longer than they would on your banana hook - for two weeks or more.

What should you look for in a banana? Most grocery stores go through a lot of these buggers, and price them quite low, often at about fifty cents a pound. This is a price that is almost never matched in the produce section of my store, and bananas are good, so I certainly can't complain. When you're looking at bananas, avoid the ones they hang up near the registers. These bananas are placed here as a last-ditch attempt to move them out of the store before they go bad. They're great for breads or desserts, or if you'll be eating them within a day or so, but pretty soon they'll go soft and nasty. When you do your regular grocery shopping, pick the greenish bananas, allowing them to ripen at home, rather than at the store. Bananas will ripen naturally in your home, unlike some fruits that will only ripen to a point. I enjoy a lightly under ripe banana from time to time, especially on cereal - I find that the slight tanginess adds a lot to the flavor. You average person wants a perfectly ripe banana. You know that a banana is ripe when it is tallow all over, with slight spotting. If you refrigerate your bananas, of course, they'll be brown or black, and you'll have to try one to see how far along they are. Your bananas, whether under or over ripe, can still be used for smoothies. Over-ripe bananas are best for breads, as their natural sweetness is predominant. Make sure to throw them out when they get too ripe, as way over ripe bananas draw fruit flies like nothing else!

Bananas are a near perfect fruit, and a healthy, cheap alternative to a candy bar. Don't give up on this humble fruit because it goes bad so quickly - if you treat your bananas well, they will rival any other fruit in your fridge for useful life.