Just buy bananas that are of the ripeness you like and put them in the fridge. They’ll easily last a week or two and tastes better too (my opinion). Don’t worry if the shell turns brown, the insides are still good. Place them in some kind of container (plastic bag will do) when you store them in fridge and they’ll probably last a month if not more (I wouldn’t know, I always eat them sooner).
When storing in fridge, the low temperature slows down ripening but oxygen causes the shell to turn brown. When the shell is brown enough it will start to ruin the insides. The plastic bag, or other airtight or near airtight container, reduces the amount of oxygen that gets to the bananas. When there’s less oxygen to turn the shell brown the bananas will last who knows how long. In room temperature the shell and the insides will ripen about at the same rate, and usually pretty fast.
This is what I do. People have gotten so used to commercially produced unripe fruit that they get turned off by actually ripe fruit. I had a friend think my bananas were going off because they smelled what a ripe banana is supposed to for the first time in their life. This person was 34 years old.
So this is interesting… if you see a bunch of bananas, you’re not allowed to break one off? Here in the United States, it’s totally acceptable to do this. You can straight up go around and pull one banans off of 7 different bunches, and nobody will even look at you funny.
One thing that shocked me about living in Asia was the amount of plastic and individually wrapped fruit...sometimes double or triple-packaged.
You will even occasionally buy a pack of Oreos and inside the package, each Oreo is individually wrapped. I don't know why it's so normal to use so much plastic.
This was in Singapore btw - the country that's supposed to be 'green' by 2030.
When Singapore announced it would be getting rid of one-use plastic bags, there was a huge uproar. My colleagues at the time would ask how they are supposed to carry groceries back home. When I mentioned they can bring a reusable bag, they were like "It's so much trouble to carry bags to the store when they can just provide them!"
Of course, not everyone had this mentality, but the people against this new policy pretty much said the same word for word.
Not to mention, there are ZERO composting programs in Singapore. Maybe you can find one mom-and-pop shop that has a compost box where you can bring your waste, but again - most people don't drive, and bringing your trash on public transport definitely won't fly.
I hope they reach the green goal by 2030, but they have a LOT of work to do in the next 6.5 years...
I normally find there are plenty of green and yellow bananas. Grab a few of each and just eat them in slightly non-optimal ripeness. I don’t think you can really gauge a bananas ripeness down to the day anyway.
I wonder if they might actually be combining them from different deliveries. IE, they grab an average ripeness one from the Monday delivery, an average ripeness one from the Tuesday delivery etc and by the time the last delivery is added the first one is about ready to eat.
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