GREEN BANANAS

[Guest guest]

RE: Green Bananas. It's the concentration of the hormone ethelene gas that's

critical.  All four things I mentioned need to be present for it to work.  The

other three are : temp, KEEP THEM WARM, humidity: KEEP THE AIR MOIST, and dark,

KEEP THEM DARK. 

Because 'ripening' is an 'organic' process, it tends to happen on it's own.  BUT

you can speed it along it you KEEP THE GAS CONCENTRATED -- the skin WILL turn

color because that is part of the process that helps create ethelene gas - a

powerful hormone. 

Washed and cleaned apples will help the process because they put out ethylene

gas too.  It build the concentration.  Did I mention that you have to keep the

concentration of the hormone ethelene gas high?  Add more apples.  Don't keep

opening the box or bag.  There is nothing in the paper that will produce

ethylene gas, all it does is keep the gas concentration high.  AND it helps keep

the fruit DARK so it will produce the right hormones. 

Chemical reaction work faster when it's warm -- think about lizards, snakes, or

most all fish.  When it's cold, they don't move around much -- when it's warm

they'll scurry, slither around, and jump out of water.  The chemical processes

in their bodies work faster when they are warm, the same is true of your

bananas.  So, keep them warm.  Why do some plants die in Arizona, even if you

keep them in the shade and their roots wet?  Well, it's because even in the

shade, their leaves need humidity around them for them to grow 'right' ---

Bananas don't grow well in the United States because we don't have the right

climate -- so you have to produce it yourself.  Keep the air moist, and warm

like where they grow.  It helps.  A LOT of chemical reactions in living things

NEED water to help them out -- and evolve to use it.  You can use that

information to create a climate that is like where the banana grows. 

So: the more you open your box, the longer you have to wait for for the bananas

to ripen because the gas escapes.  The more you open the bag(s) or box, the

longer it takes to build up the ethelene gas and the more light you let in.  AND

the cooler it gets.  Recent studies show that MANY plants survived MANY

near-extinction events because they could live on just moments of sunlight a day

for years on end.  They simply 'went to sleep' and the MOMENT the sun shone on

them, they woke up and went into a frenzy repairing themselves then went back to

sleep.  Like a said 1/1000th of a second is all it takes to 'wake up' some seeds

to make them germinate.  So keep it dark as long as you can.

IF YOU MUST USE A BOX instead of (a) plastic bag(s) in a dark place, put in

multiple apples.  and tape it shut in a warm environment where the temp will

stay steady.  Tops shelves on inside rooms (away from outside walls) is often

the best place.

HERE IS A NIFTY WAY TO TAPE A BOX CLOSED.

don't cross fold your top.  just have one seam across the top.

 

Take some Duct tape and put a length starting about 3-4 inches down on the side

of the box and run it across ONE of the top flaps, then 3-4 inches down the next

side.  (you might need to use two pieces of duct tape.)

Do the same for the other flap. Make sure you don't tape them together. Now you

have both flaps with a length of duct tape which runs ALONG SIDE the edge of

each flap. 

Take a knife and cut the duct tape where it attaches the flaps to the sides.

(Here *I* often just run some duct tape cross-wise across the tape on the side,

overlapping the tape as it goes down, but I'm fussy that way).  

NOW, take another piece of duct tape and run it from the side of the box so that

it seals each flap, and overlaps the strips that are on each flap.  Make that

strip about 6-7-8 inches longer than the strip you have down the side of the

box.  FOLD THE END OVER onto itself so the gluey sides stick together, to form a

'flap' or 'tab' and you have both sides of the flap with the shinny (non-sticky)

side on each side of the tape.  That way you can grab it and not get glue on

your hands.

You have now made a (reasonably) tight seal along the area where a lot of gas

will escape.  When you pull on the tab, the piece of duct tape that runs down

the center seam and seals the box, will pull up without pulling up the

cardboard.  It is on top of duct tape, and duct tape will hold onto the side of

the box stronger than it will hold onto the duct tape backing.  You have now

put, in essence, a 'zipper' on top of the box so you can open it.  But you don't

want to. 

Be patient.

In two or three days, open the box -- it has been dark, moist, warm, and is FULL

of ethylene gas. you will see any green that was on the bananas is slowly

disappearing and the skin is starting to turn yellow.  

REMEMBER: THE MORE YOU OPEN THE BOX THE LONGER IT WILL TAKE. This is because you

dissipate the ethylene gas every time you open it, and the gas has to build back

up.  All the warm air also rushes out of the box when you open it. 

This isn't magic, it's biology.  In order to build a self-perpetuating spiral of

events, you have to give it time -- and warmth and moisture and darkness.  You

have to keep the conditions as constant as you can - The higher the

concentration of ethylene gas the faster the bananas will ripen.

Remember: Paper bags were a BRAND NEW TECHNOLOGY when they were invented.  They

allowed a better 'seal' for fruit to concentrate their ethylene gas in -- FAR

better than wrapping the fruit in newspaper!  Then other fruits were found to

out-gas hormones too.  So this works for MANY different fruits - some with more

success than others. 

To build the amount of ethylene gas faster, put in more fresh, clean, apples. 

IT IS ALL ABOUT THE CONCENTRATION of hormones.  So build it faster by more

apples.  Use fast ripening apples, like the 'Delicious' varieties.  'Soft'

apples tend to, as a group, out-gas more hormone than the 'crisp' apples.

Red more than green.  Sweet more than tart.  Us that as a guide.

Remember that warm gases rise. So you might want to put the bananas on a stack

of news papers to decrease the volume inside the box, and to allow the bananas

to be UP where the gas is, not down below. 

Don't expect miracles. Even if you went down to your local gas supply warehouse

where they sell oxygen, acetylene, Butane, etc for torches and other uses, and

ordered a small cylinder of ethylene and blew it directly on the bananas, you

would not ripen them overnight - the metabolism of the bananas STILL needs it

own time to work, you can HELP it work, but you can't FORCE it to work.

Turning starch in to sugar involves FAR more than a single hormone.  There are

intra- and inter-cellular processes that need to work, thus they need warmth to

speed up that cellular process but not so much as to kill the cells that are

doing the work.  Just like people have a hard time working in supra-or

sub-arctic conditions, they also have a hard time working in areas like the

middle east or equatorial regions.  That is why you see the greatest number of

people living in the 'temperate' zones of earth.  

While too late now, here is something to think about:  YOU CAN ORDER RIPE

BANANAS! -- your store will order bananas in various stages of 'ripeness' -- X%

will we ripe, Y% will be almost ripe, and Z% will be unripe.  With expensive or

slow movers, X will be low and Z will be high.  With fast movers or lower price,

X (ripe) will be high and Z (unripe) will be low. This allows the store to keep

a longer 'shelf-life' in their produce section on fruit and veggies where

'spoilage' is likely to be high. 

If you go to the produce manager and ASK for -- it needs to be worth while -- a

half a case of ripe bananas, the chances are he can have it to you in a couple

of days to a week - it depends on the store and their suppliers -- Up where I

live -- Nevada City and ville CA there are stores where they can order like

that -- and often smaller stores where produce moves slower you'll find ripe

bananas - a small market that caters to the Basque and Spanish populations which

work on ranches in ville ALWAYS has ripe bananas since they DO want to keep

as much on hand and keep their clients from going to the big-chain supermarkets

- even for ONE item.  Because they go in for a dime and spend a dollar.  Keep

them in your store.  So small markets often have turning (yellow skin) and ripe

(small black specked skins) bananas in them.

Good luck, and you can go look on the web for how bananas ripen so you

understand the process a bit more.  But cells, just like people, can only work

so fast -- if you try to force them to work faster, they'll die.  

And remember, thick trash bags will work just as well as paper to contain the

ethylene gas, it's not about the paper, it's about the triggers that will set

the process in motion: CONCENTRATION of gas (the most gas you can put in a small

area) so add multiple clean apples,  DARK to turn the chlorophyll from green to

yellow, and help kick-start the cellular processes in side and between the

cells, WARM to speed up the process, and MOIST to keep the biochemical process

flowing because ALL life needs water - AND water helps keep the air 'warm'.  The

more perfect these conditions are optimized, the faster a fruit will ripen.

GOOD LUCK! -- paul --

Dream Well. Travel Well.  May you Walk Your Path in Beauty.

" Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. " Carl Sagan.