Organic bananas are tasty tropical fruits that can be found all year long and are a healthy and nutritious snack.
They are healthy and popular fruits however it is important to properly store them to prevent them from turning black too quickly.
You may be aware that bananas at the grocery store are usually sold in bunches with plastic wrap around the bottom of the stem.
The reason is that they are emitting ethylene gas through the banana stems.
Organic bananas emit ethylene gas as a natural aspect of their ripening process. The trick to keeping your organic bananas fresh is to wrap the stems with plastic wrap to restrict their emission of ethylene gas.
You can do this with only a small amount of plastic wrap. If it does not stay put you can use a rubber band to close the remainder of the plastic wrap around the exterior.
Why Is a Plastic Used To Wrap Organic Banana Stems?
A lot of ethylene emitted from bananas are coming from the stems and the more ethylene produced, the riper the fruit will be. Ethylene stimulates fruit maturation and abscission.
Many climacteric fruit, such as apple, banana, and tomato will produce ethylene at an elevated level at the late green, or breaker, stage.
The high levels of ethylene will breakdown chlorophyll and generate other colors like black, leading them to the common ripe banana peel color.
Many of the enzymes involved in the fruit maturation process will become more active. Starch, organic acids, and fats in some cases, are mobilized and converted to sugars.
The plastic wrap helps contain ethylene gas that is produced by bananas through ripening.
When the fruit is not originally wrapped in plastic, the ethylene gas can migrate to other parts of the banana resulting in whole fruit ripening prematurely.
Wrap the stems of organic bananas in plastic wrap so they can maintain freshness and texture for a longer period of time.
It prevents absorbtion of ethylene gas from the surrounding air through the banana stems that could be present with other fruits.
Works Best: Make sure that the wrapping is not loose enough to allow ethylene to be absorbed.
Is It Better to Wrap Organic Bananas as a Bunch or Separate Them?
| Wrapping as Bunch | Wrapping a Single Stem |
|---|---|
| You must wrap it back up when you want to consume | You don’t have to unwrap when consuming |
| Generate more ethylene because they are linked together | Generate less ethylene gas, making it last longer |
| Spaces between the stem cause ethylene gas to escape | Cover the stem completely to prevent off-gassing |
| One bad banana spoils the bunch | One bad banana cannot infect the rest |
| It interferes with the freshness and texture because you might bruise the other bananas when picking one | Maintain its freshness and texture |
Wrapping single banana stem versus wrapping a bunch
While wrapping your banana stems as a group is a good start, even though there is still space between the stems and some ethylene might be able to escape.
Most bananas in a bunch ripen at slightly different times, and bananas that ripen first produce more ethylene gas, which causes all of the bananas in the bunch to ripen much faster.
When you have bananas that are connected, they are creating and absorbing more ethylene gas, resulting in browning, or overripe bananas.
Separating the bananas and protecting their stems offers the best potential for freshness, and their texture is as nice as the day they became ripe.
In your case, the best part about wrapping the bananas individually, is that you do not have to unwrap the stems when you want to consume your bananas.
You can open the bananas from the opposite end without having to remove the stem wrappers and use the stem wrappers as a handle for holding the bananas.
What we do: When wrapped as a bunch, every time you pull a banana away from the bunch, you have to gently wrap it back up again so the bananas can keep for longer.
Final Thoughts
Bananas that are not encased in plastic ripen faster than bunches wrapped in plastic.
The wrapping prevents ethanol gas the fruit emits from maturing the banana before they are ready.
Otherwise, you would have to separate the bunch also, and wrap each stem in foil, plastic wrap, or bees wax to actually stop the ripening process.
Individually wrapped organic bananas ripen slightly slower than the bunch.
This method will not stop your bananas from ripening, but it will stop the slow process, and probably save some bananas from going to waste.