Woman shares 'crazy' but simple food storage hack to keep bananas fresh for 18 days longer

It can feel like a race against time to eat bananas before they turn brown and mushy in your fruit bowl, but one woman has revealed that storing them correctly can help them last for up to 18 days without spoiling.

To help transform hard, green bananas into ones that are soft, yellow and ready for eating, their stems emit a plant growth hormone known as ethylene gas. However, this same gas also triggers rapid ripening. Other fruits including apples, avocados, mangos, pears, peaches, and berries produce ethylene gas too. When stored together, the combined gas output can cause the fruit to rot prematurely, causing unnecessary waste.

Brenda Anderson, a farmer, cook and founder of Little Lost Creations, has shared a simple yet effective hack to prevent this from happening. According to Brenda, ripe bananas should be stored in the fridge to keep them fresh for longer, reports the Express.

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Brenda shared: "A friend of mine told me something she had tried. I thought it sounded a little crazy, but I thought I would give it a try. She said to put the bananas in a brown paper grocery bag closed tightly, and put them in the crisper in the refrigerator. She said the peel would go black but the banana would taste good."

Many believe that bananas should never be kept in the fridge as the cold temperature turns the peel black, which can be mistaken for spoilage. However, storing a ripe banana in the fridge will stop the ripening process and the fruit inside the peel will stay fresh and edible for weeks after purchase.

Brenda revealed: "After two and a half weeks in the crisper in the refrigerator I took my bananas out to try them. I really wanted to put this method to the test. The peelings don't look like the banana is going to taste good but when I peeled the banana it had not gone mushy like I thought it would."

She continued, "It was still firm and tasted just a little riper than when I put them in the brown paper sack."

The secret to keeping bananas fresher for longer lies in preventing ethylene gas from spoiling them. You can also achieve this by wrapping the stem in cling film, which stops the fruit from producing the gas. Another food storage tip is to keep your bananas separate from other fruits, which you can do by hanging bananas from a hook above your fruit bowl. This allows more air circulation to prevent the ethylene gas from taking effect.

Even if your bananas have turned mushy and can't be saved, there's no need to bin them. You can easily transform them into delicious banana bread or perhaps treat yourself to some banana and chocolate chip muffins.

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