• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Why Do Bananas Turn Brown And How Do We Stop Them?

July 24, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

With 105 million tonnes produced annually, it’s safe to say bananas are one of the world’s favorite fruits (although botanically speaking they are berries, and the “tree” they grow on is actually a herb). While you can eat the skin of this nutritious and versatile snack, their temperamental nature means they’re ripe for only a couple of days. So, why do bananas brown so fast and, more importantly, how can we put a stop to it?

Why do bananas turn brown?

Bananas have one airborne hormone to thank for their impressively colorful life cycle – ethylene. This hormone works to speed up the ripening process, and while some fruit and vegetables just absorb ethylene, others actively produce it. Producers of ethylene fall into two categories – climacteric fruits and non-climacteric fruits. Climacteric fruits, like bananas, produce a burst of ethylene during ripening while non-climacteric fruits, like citrus fruits and melons, stop producing ethylene when they’re removed from the plant or vine.

Advertisement

This means climacteric fruits will continue to ripen after they’ve been harvested, and storing climacteric fruits next to non-climacteric or ethylene-absorbing fruit and veg will cause the other produce to continue ripening.

Contact with ethylene causes the acids in the fruit to start to break down, softening its flesh and breaking up green chlorophyll pigments. This changes the fruit’s appearance while also making it softer and sweeter. As the ethylene continues to do its thing to bananas, the yellow pigment will break down and form brown spots in a process called enzymatic browning.

Despite getting a particularly bad reputation for making your fruit bowl go mushy, bananas are just one of a number of fruits that will continue to overripen your produce. That’s why storing ethylene-producing fruits like bananas, apples, and avocados together is a recipe for disaster and banana bread.

How to stop bananas from going brown

While there might not be a way to completely halt the browning process, there are ways you can keep your bananas perfectly ripe for longer.

Advertisement

Firstly, using a banana hook will prevent bruising and damage to soft tissue, which increases the effects of ethylene. You can also follow the lead of some supermarkets and wrap the stems in plastic wrap. The stem of the banana is where most of the ethylene is released from; if you contain this area then you prevent the hormone from reaching the rest of the banana.

Another method is to store them somewhere cool and dark. Sunlight will encourage the ripening process and Dole recommends 12°C (54°F) as the optimum temperature for banana storage. That being said, storage inside an enclosed container will increase ethylene levels and speed up ripening.

There is also some controversy surrounding the practice of storing bananas in the fridge. While it’s effective to freeze bananas for use in things like smoothies or ice cream, the refrigeration process can cause “chilling injury”, which affects pre-ripened bananas, stopping them from ripening further and causing a bitter and unpleasant taste. It’s recommended that only perfectly ripe bananas are refrigerated, and although their skin will quickly turn dark brown, the fruit inside should retain its ripe flavour.

Additionally, while cut banana slices will brown in a matter of seconds, the addition of an acidic juice like lemon or pineapple will stop this process by neutralizing the banana’s pH.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Dollar marks one-week top amid higher U.S. yields, ECB caution
  2. Tennis-Barty among first three qualifiers for WTA Finals
  3. Back in black: U.S. Supreme Court returns from COVID-19 telework
  4. How Ancient Greek Philosophers And Mythology Saw The End Of The World

Source Link: Why Do Bananas Turn Brown And How Do We Stop Them?

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • What Aristotle Got Wrong About The Octopus
  • The World’s Largest Island Is Shrinking And Shifting
  • Record-Breaking Marshmallow Planet – It’s A Cold, Peculiar World On A Very Slanted Orbit
  • Distinctive Rocks Might Be Remnants Of Earth Before The Collision That Made The Moon
  • Bright Northern Lights Across America Expected This Week As 3 Coronal Mass Ejections Fly Towards Earth
  • Brain Implant Enables Paralyzed Man To Feel And Use Objects Using Someone Else’s Hands
  • “This Is A Really Big Deal”: Brain Training Significantly Improves Key Neurochemical Levels In World First
  • “Wholly Unexpected”: First-Ever Fossil Paranthropus Hand Raises Questions About Earliest Tool Makers’ Identity
  • For Centuries, Nobody Knew Why Swiss Cheese Has Holes. Then, The Mystery Was Solved.
  • Scientists Studied The Infamous “Chicago Rat Hole” And They Have Some Bad News
  • Massive 166-Million-Year-Old Sauropod Footprints Become The Longest Dinosaur Trackway In Europe
  • Do Spiders Dream? “After Watching Hundreds Of Spiders, There Is No Doubt In My Mind”
  • IFLScience Meets: ESA Astronaut Rosemary Coogan On Astronaut Training And The Future Of Space Exploration
  • What’s So Weird About The Methuselah Star, The Oldest We’ve Found In The Universe?
  • Why Does Red Wine Give Me A Headache? Many Scientists Blame It On The Grape Skins
  • Manta Rays Dive Way Deeper Than We Thought – Up To 1.2 Kilometers – To Explore The Seas
  • Prof Brian Cox Explains What He Finds “Remarkable” About Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Story
  • Pioneering “Pregnancy Test” Could Identify Hormones In Skeletons Over 1,000 Years Old
  • The First Neolithic Self-Portrait? Stony Human Face Emerges In 12,000-Year-Old Ruins At Karahan Tepe
  • Women Are Diagnosed With ADHD 5 Years Later Than Men, Even With Worse Symptoms
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version