The Banana Bag Experiment

A while ago I started keeping the bananas I bought in a brown plastic bag. I can’t remember where I heard it or read it (or imagined it) but the theory was that it would slow down the ripening process. I like my bananas with a little green on them. Not so green that they don’t peel easily, but just before they start getting too sweet. It seemed to work! But I’d never tested it to see if it really  worked. Maybe I had just talked myself into believing it worked. So I decided to experiment. Here’s my banana bag:I bought a bunch of six bananas that were greenish, and divided them into two groups. One group went into the bag, and the other sat at on the counter next to the bag. Here’s day 1:And here’s Day 3:

You’ll notice the number of bananas has decreased. I’m all for science, but c’mon – they’re bananas! 🙂 The ones on the left were in the bag. If you look closely you can see that the stems of the bananas on the left are greener than those on the right. And they tasted less ripe. Which is a good thing, as far as I’m concerned.

And here’s Day 8:

Amazing, right? I googled bananas in bags and it has something to do with oxygen and ethylene, but all I know is that it works! I have no idea if the colour of the bag makes any difference, but it’s the bag I have. You could do your own experiment if you want to figure that out. Let me know how it works out if you do!