Bananas are notorious for spoiling quickly—sometimes within just a few days of buying them—but a simple storage hack can keep them fresh for up to 14 days or beyond. The key is to ditch the fruit bowl and wrap the stems in tin foil.
The Express writer Katherine McPhillips recently learned that she had been storing bananas incorrectly, which is why they tended to rot so fast. She said: "It might make sense to put your bananas in a fruit bowl, but this is actually the worst place to put them in the kitchen as they will begin rotting if stored next to other fruit. That may sound strange, but most fruit produces ethylene, a invisible gas which ripens fruit to make it taste sweeter, but too much of it in the air will speed up the ripening process."
Why the fruit bowl is the worst spot
When bananas are placed next to other fruit, the ethylene overload causes them to spoil rather than ripen properly, meaning they simply won't remain fresh. Bananas tend to produce the greatest quantity of ethylene, which is precisely why keeping them out of the fruit bowl is essential—otherwise they'll cause everything around them to rot and decay.
After Katherine accidentally left her bananas on the corner of a kitchen worktop for several days following a grocery shop, she noticed that they stayed noticeably fresher and more yellow for longer. This approach will keep bananas fresh for at least a week, but wrapping the stems in tin foil will preserve their flavour for even longer.
The tin foil method
After conducting some research into food storage online, Katherine discovered that bananas emit ethylene gas from their stems, and wrapping them will significantly slow down this process. This results in less ethylene being released into the air, and her experiment showed that this keeps bananas fresh for a minimum of 10 days, though many have lasted up to 14 days or even beyond.
Tin foil offers the best protection for bananas, as cling film seals the stems too tightly and can trap moisture, which can actually lead to mould growth. Baking paper is an extremely thin material, meaning ethylene can escape with ease, making it ineffective, whereas tin foil properly seals bananas while keeping moisture out at the same time.
Long-term savings
Katherine has been using this storage method for several months now, and this small change has kept her bananas a vibrant yellow for weeks rather than days, while also helping her make savings on the weekly food shop.
