confounded by banana bags!

I thought I understood why bananas mature so quickly - they release ethylene (an end of life plant hormone).  So you aren't supposed to put them in a bag because the ethylene gets trapped and accelerates the process. 

Yet, bananas sold in shrink wrap last twice as long?  Never seen it before now.  Seems you can choose between wrapped and nonwrapped at the store.

My uncle brought me a care package last Thursday, and I ate the last banana on Wednesday. It was only mildly speckeld.  Usually, I buy 5 (one for each morning) and the last one is mostly brown.

Not solving the problems of the world here, but I want to know how to make my bananas last longer! 

Bananas ripen faster in a paper bag especially if you put a fruit such an apple or tomato in with them, because of the ethylene, but putting them in a plastic bag deprives them of the oxygen they also need to ripen. I think that's it.

I'll buy that.   Literally.   

Have you been to Cabot Circus yet? I have spent the last few years having to walk around the construction site to get to work but now it's open I haven't felt much need to visit. Madame Contrex said it would "probably be awful" but she just "kind of popped in" last week and came back saying it was great, better than Cribbs Causeway, etc.

Not yet, as I've only just discovered it exists. 

So far, it's Broadmead or the Bedminster shopping district (East Street) which is pretty grim. 

When Madame Contrex & I first started seeing each other, she lived in Southville Place, just by the back of Asda, and every morning at 4 AM we would be woken by the delivery trucks. Very handy for shopping though.. Christmas 1993... (Ah, memories...)

The banana's at Kroger's here have been green for weeks. I bought some about five weeks ago and they went from being green to brown, never yellow at all.  I wish they would get some at least slightly yellow bananas in stock!

Have you been to Cabot Circus yet? I have spent the last few years having to walk around the construction site to get to work but now it's open I haven't felt much need to visit. Madame Contrex said it would "probably be awful" but she just "kind of popped in" last week and came back saying it was great, better than Cribbs Causeway, etc.

I was there on Thursday. It is impressive, especially around lunchtime when it gets crowded. Just seeing everyone rushing along in the middle of all this glass was very cool.

Good shops and some good food. Unfortunately, I didn't have much money to spend. I did walk around there (and Broadmead) for almost 2 hours before heading up to the university.

I was there on Thursday. It is impressive, especially around lunchtime when it gets crowded. Just seeing everyone rushing along in the middle of all this glass was very cool.

Good shops and some good food. Unfortunately, I didn't have much money to spend. I did walk around there (and Broadmead) for almost 2 hours before heading up to the university.

I've decided not to venture down there for a while... one of our customers in Cribbs yesterday was saying that she'd gone down to Cabot Circus that morning and it was absolutely gridlocked in the centre of Bristol because of all the shoppers !

The banana's at Kroger's here have been green for weeks. I bought some about five weeks ago and they went from being green to brown, never yellow at all.  I wish they would get some at least slightly yellow bananas in stock!

I found that the bananas I bought in the states (from Smiths (Krogers)) lasted much longer if I kept them in the fridge rather than just out on the counter top - I guess because it was so warm out of the fridge that they went bad much more quickly.

Can't remember where I read it but if you split up the bunch of bananas into individual bananas they are supposed to ripen more slowly.  This is what we do and it seems to work.

The banana's at Kroger's here have been green for weeks. I bought some about five weeks ago and they went from being green to brown, never yellow at all.  I wish they would get some at least slightly yellow bananas in stock!

That happened to me with some bananas I bought a while ago and I asked someone I work with who knows alot about plants and he said that he thought that happened because at one point in their banana life they were frozen.  Just something I heard.

I found that the bananas I bought in the states (from Smiths (Krogers)) lasted much longer if I kept them in the fridge rather than just out on the counter top - I guess because it was so warm out of the fridge that they went bad much more quickly.

Didn't even think about the temperature factor!

Didn't even think about the temperature factor!

That is why people far from tropical zones didn't start eating bananas until the technology came along to build refrigerated ships.