Rubbery bananas.

[LizBeth]

I googled but could not find the answer, though others were asking too. Does anyone know why periodically I will buy bananas that look good but they are rubbery. When I try to break them up for my smoothies they just bend, not really break up easily and the smoothie is so thick cause the banana did not break down normally in the mixer.

Curious, .... Gotta find the answers, lol.

[mbusby]

1. Mistook it for a...

...plantain?

[LizBeth]

2. Nope, a Dole banana. It is only recently I have been seeing it and not often but time enough.

Weird and yukky.

[Hugin]

3. Stop grocery shopping in the decorative fruit section of housewares?

I kid! I kid!



Seriously, I wonder if it's a ripeness issue or maybe a slightly different variety of banana.

[LizBeth]

8. ;)

[Hugin]

10. I too am a bananaphile.

I love me some bananas.

I do know that the bananas we get today aren't even remotely related to the bananas from years ago. They're very susceptible to various fungi.

Maybe they've come up with a new variety that is more transportable, but, as always yukky. Like with tomatoes, carrots, and avacados.

[hatrack]

18. Gros Michel was the variety when I was a kid (this would be about 50 years ago) . . .

It became commercially extinct and was replaced by the Cavendish, which is the dominant commodity banana today.

It's on the way out as well:

https://www.npr.org/2011/08/30/139787380/bananas-the-uncertain-future-of-a-favorite-fruit

[KentuckyWoman]

20. Bananaphile

You do realize I am now going to find every which way I can to shock the old ladies in my retirement village with that word.

Thank you.

[Hugin]

27. Bananavore

Seemed too clinical.

[LakeArenal]

4. We grow bananas and if picked green sometimes they just don't ripen enough.

[LizBeth]

7. Perfectly yellow showing ripe but yes, inside is like unripe and that is the taste also.

[CrackityJones75]

13. Meh, green bananas are supposedly better for you.

[LizBeth]

14. I heard they both have different qualities and if I remember, I like what I got more with the

green than the more ripe. I thought that interesting, different nutrient qualities. Regardless, it made for a nasty smoothie.

[LakeArenal]

26. It's very hard to peel green bananas.

Even the birds won’t eat them

[Tink41]

5. I've noticed also

Most of my grocery purchases are Amazon or Whole Foods since the pandemic. Somewhere in the middle of all this the bananas became odd. Won't peel from top, rubbery like you said. Sometimes they are brown inside and watery despite being tinged with green and just starting to yellow. My daughter remarked on this last week also.

[LizBeth]

6. +1

[Ritabert]

9. A couple of months ago I got a bad bunch

Very peculiar odor and taste almost like petroleum. I spit it out and tossed the whole bunch.

[48656c6c6f20]

11. One of these is ripe

The others should not be eaten. I'll go with the non yellow ripe one that bends.

[LizBeth]

12. #2

[48656c6c6f20]

22. #2 is OK

Obviously 1 and 3 have green stems. But the peak ripe is the ugly black one

[LizBeth]

23. Wow, I would use the ugly black one for banana bread or pancakes.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Just A Guess

There's an enzyme in bananas called pectinstearase.
This enzyme helps the reaction with the naturally occurring ethylene in the banana (it's what ripens them). That reaction breaks and terminates some of the natural polymers that make up the fruit's fibers.
If a crop of bananas were to be lower in that enzyme, those reactions would slow and the fruit would still be loaded with the longer, unsubstituted chains.
Since those chains make up polymeric fibers, just like in rubber & plastics, the rigidity & elasticity become a function of those longer, undisrupted chains.
Like I said, I'm guessing because I don't know how much enzyme content is normal and what a reduction would have to be to interfere with that polymer size reduction.
But, the chemistry I provided is accurate.

[LizBeth]

17. Fascinating. Awesome. Thank you. I think you are on the right track.

My guess is it is to fast track the banana to product or some kind of person interference of the natural process. But Interesting.

[ProfessorGAC]

19. Possible

But, I'm going the other way.
The fast track process is to expose the fruit to an ethylene rich atmosphere for a few hours.
It accelerates the ripening process.
They do that with tomatoes using ethylene oxide and have for years. EO is naturally occurring in tomatoes.
I've worked many times at a site in Colombia where one side of the valley was banana groves.
I noticed over the years fewer & fewer unpicked fruit on the ground. Those unpicked fruit would ripen to rotten & the stream water would run yellow.
I think they started picking earlier, then used the ethylene chamber to ripen for market, because less fruit had time to fall to the ground.
BTW: the other side of the valley was coffee. I saw guys picking beans many times. You can have that job!

[Crunchy Frog]

16. Are you sure you didn't accidentally purchase a decorative fake?

[obamanut2012]

21. It may be a plantain

[yonder]

24. Not really related to your thread but...

...I recently read that ripe bananas have more fiber than green ones - not sure why that would be the case.

[Hekate]

25. They're all picked green for longer life while shipping, but sometimes there are ones so green...

…it may be they’ll never ripen properly.

If this is a problem for you, store your bananas in a paper bag with an apple in it. The apple helps ripen them — I don’t remember why, but it does.

[LizBeth]

28. Oh, that is interesting about the apple.

[Wicked Blue]

29. The apple gives off ethylene oxide

Professor GAC mentioned this higher up in the thread

[rurallib]

30. Could they have accidentally been frozen?

I have had some bananas that were frozen and then put into warmth and they were pretty bad.

Wouldn't think this might happen this time of year, but processors are doing lots of strange things to shorten or extend shelf life.

[LizBeth]

31. That could be and that would make sense. Thanks.